Researchers Hijack Mebroot Botnet, Study Drive-By Downloads

TechReviewAl writes "Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara hijacked the Mebroot botnet for about a month and used it to study drive-by downloading. The researchers managed to intercept Mebroot communications by reverse-engineering the algorithm used to select domains to connect to. Mebroot infects legitimate websites and uses them to redirect users to malicious sites that attempt to install malware on a victim's machine. The team, who previously infiltrated the Torpig botnet, found that at least 13.3 percent of systems that were redirected by Mebroot were already infected and 70 percent were vulnerable to about 40 common attacks."

Comments

Re:Like stealing illicit drugs?

[Runaway1956]

Well, politicians aren't held to ANY standard. Witness that senator for Mass they screwed into the ground just weeks ago. Ask the former Governor of Illinois what standards he was held to. He just went to far when he tried to auction off a senate position. I wonder what the results would be if I googled "Where to congressmen stick their peckers?" Employees and appointees have higher standards than elected officials, but that doesn't mean much.