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New Russian Botnet Tries To Kill Rivals
alphadogg writes "An upstart Trojan horse program has decided to take on its much-larger rival by stealing data and then removing the malicious program from infected computers. Security researchers say that the relatively unknown Spy Eye toolkit added this functionality just a few days ago in a bid to displace its larger rival, known as Zeus. The feature, called "Kill Zeus," apparently removes the Zeus software from the victim's PC, giving Spy Eye exclusive access to usernames and passwords. Zeus and Spy Eye are both Trojan-making toolkits, designed to give criminals an easy way to set up their own "botnet" networks of password-stealing programs. These programs emerged as a major problem in 2009, with the FBI estimating last October that they have caused $100 million in losses."
"What could be better than botnets trying to destroy each other?"
Well, on the surface it looks good, but before long they'll be collaborating and eventually they'll learn to mate and produce better offspring. Then we'll have to amend the Defense of Marriage Act to keep botnets from getting married and start enforcing Don't Ask Don't Tell for networks.
It's amazing how many people don't know that SkyNet's parents were homosexual transvestite liberal russian hackers that smoked heavily and collected guns.
dARIUS qUAN predicted all of this. We should have listened!
If you write malware in Java you could keep them in jars too...
Spy Vs. Spy!
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
The news that a botnet is killing its rivals is nowhere near as disturbing as the news that it's decided to kill its rivals.
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make install -not war
Why is this postworthy? People have been asking "Why is this news?" for years now.