Cybercriminals Attempt to Revive Srizbi Spam Botnet

  • 28 August 2014
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By Eduard Kovacs on August 28, 2014  
 
Srizbi, once considered one of the most powerful botnets, is apparently trying to make a comeback with the aid of a new piece of malware, F-Secure reported.
Researchers first spotted the new threat back in April (although it might have surfaced earlier than that) and, after a close analysis, they determined that it shared many similarities with the old Srizbi spambot. While it has the same general purpose, the new piece of malware has been completely rewritten so F-Secure has decided to give it a different name: Pitou.
Srizbi, also known as Cbeplay and Exchanger, was considered one of the largest botnets back in 2008. The approximately 450,000 machines infected at the time enabled cybercriminals to send out 60 billion spam messages per day. The botnet took a major blow in November 2008 when its command and control (C&C) servers were cut off from the Internet. The botmasters attempted to resurrect Srizbi shortly after, but failed.
Pitou caught the attention of researchers for several reasons. One of them is the interesting dropper, which checks the version of the operating system before selecting a payload dropping mechanism. If Windows XP is detected, the kernel-mode driver (kernel payload), detected by some security companies are Uroburos and Turla, is installed as a Windows service via the CreateServiceAPI. If Windows 7 or a newer version of the OS is detected, a bootkit is installed by infecting the master boot record (MBR).
 
SecurityWeek/ full article here/ http://www.securityweek.com/cybercriminals-attempt-revive-srizbi-spam-botnet

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