“The systems were infected with the Zeus Trojan and the botnet was dubbed ‘Kneber’ after a username that linked the infected PCs on corporate and government systems, according to NetWitness,” Mills reports. “The Wall Street Journal reported that Merck, Cardinal Health, Paramount Pictures, and Juniper Networks were among the targets in the attack. NetWitness speculated that criminals in Eastern Europe using a command-and-control server in Germany sent attachments containing the malware in e-mails or links to the malware on Web sites that employees within the companies clicked on.”
Mills reports, “NetWitness said it discovered more than 75 gigabytes worth of stolen data during routine analytic tasks as part of an evaluation of a client network on January 26. The cache of stolen data included 68,000 corporate login credentials, access to e-mail systems, online banking sites, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail, 2,000 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate files and data on individuals.”
“In addition to stealing specific data, Zeus can be used to search for and steal any file on the computer, download and execute programs and allow someone to remotely control the computer,” Mills reports. “More than half of the compromised machines were also infected with peer-to-peer bot malware called Waledac, the company said. Nearly 200 countries were affected, with most of the infections found in Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, good thing you saved that $169.47 per seat upfront when you bought those WIndows boxes instead of those Macs your users really wanted, IT geniuses. You’ll waste your organizations 80 times your “savings” just trying to clean up just this Windows mess. Don’t worry, there’ll be many more to come. Isn’t built-in job security grand?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Eric L.” for the heads up.]
I got a call from an ex-inlaw last night. Their laptop had froze up again right after getting it out of the shop to have it cleaned.
They want me to find them a used Mac.
They will be my eighth conversion in less than 3 years.
Dumbass IT stooges will are destined to become dinosaurs.
Ooops, make them the tenth. Forgot about two.
Why is Microsoft not at least partially liable for this? These exploits are happening only to their OS!
Class Action Law Suit against Microsoft. They allow this to happen on purpose to keep the IT drones who promote their crap employed.
I’ve ben in desktop support for over 15 years, on both macs and Windows. Macs DO beat Windows hands down, for both usability and security.
I had little luck in converting Windows users until about three years ago, and since have converted almost a dozen. BUT, each of those have also been busily converting their own contacts, so that now I’ve got literally dozens and dozens of “converts” indirectly attributable to me through those initial prime converts.
It just keeps on growing.
Yet none of the typical tech bloggers that are PC/Windows centric ever talks about this *REAL* Microsoft Tax when comparing Mac and Windows in their articles. They always say Macs cost more, yada yada yada…. bull! Factor in that MS TAX and boom, Windows users LOSE!
So that’s how people have been making comments on MDN using my pseudo name!!!
Just to make things clear:
IT guy didn’t get windows boxes just to “save’ money, they get windows boxes because most of them are so ignorant that they don’t know any other option and can’t figure out how to implemented even if they find it.
I know a lot of IT guys that have spend thousand of dollars in training and certifications from Microsoft and they are not planning to trow that away just because the Macintosh is better.
Windows viruses – the gift that keeps on giving.
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We can’t really tell how Macs will do in such an attack until they are the main computers in the majority of companies.
My university, which runs windows xp has never been down because of spyware or virus’. The only time I have seen the system down is when the Novell NetWare servers were down.
@ JAYGEE – Dude, where have you been the last several years? “Security through obscurity” is a myth!
There are viruses for iPods running Linux, for crying out loud, which is about as obscure as you can get.
Exploits are written because of exploitable vulnerabilities, and do not exist solely because a given operating system is a “main computer”.
No virus on my PC.
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http://www.bing.com When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing & Decide
Re: MDN Take… I don’t think even MDN gets it. IT guarantees their jobs long into the future as long as they keep Microsoft in the enterprise. Can you blame ’em? For Apple (or anyone else) to move into the enterprise the ROI discussion has to take place at the “C” level not with the lowly IT dept.
@ I’m a PC
None but the one behind the keyboard!
@ Gabriel. I agree that Macs are more secure, but Macs are not being attacked as mush as Windows, just because of Windows large market share.
If Macs had such a large market share like windows, they’d be attacked more. There would not be as many virus’ like there are for windows, but there will be a few virus’ going around. No software is 100% secure.
@ JAYGEE
OS X is TEN YEARS OLD. How many self propagating viruses in the wild?
@ iPhoneEnvy. None. I’m not arguing OS X’s security, but you can’t think that if OS X had 90% market share, that it would have no self propagating viruses in the wild?
@JAYGEE
There are no viruses for MacOS X. Zero. None.
When Windows Vista was initially released, and there were only about 10,000 desktops running it, there were already 4 viruses specifically targeted at Vista.
You’re just arguing the old and discredited “security by obscurity” myth. The Mac has more that 20% of the installed base of computers in the United States, but 0% of the viruses.
The fact is simply that the Mac is a much “harder” target than any version of Windows you might care to select. As iPhoneEnvy said, MacOS X is 10 years old — if viruses were even possible on MacOS X, they would have been done by now if only for the distinction of producing the first one.
In other news today, the sun came up this morning.
@towerone
your comment about an ex-inlaw, brought a smile to my face,
I was married very young for 13 years, great wife and we had 2 great kids (lawyer and doctor).
Worst thing in the split was
loosing my father inlaw! Through my kids we kept in touch, and I got him a MacBook a few years ago, he passed last September
@ emmayche. To be fair, Windows 7 may have had only 10,000 copies around, but that was never going to stay like that was it? Windows 7 would soon be the default OS on computers sold in shops.
I have already explained the rest in replies to other people.
No…. I think about 10,000 copies is about all they sold.
@JAYGEE – you explained it before; you were wrong then; you are still wrong. End of story. It’s ok to believe something real hard, and be wrong. You are wrong.
Did I mention, you’re wrong.
@ RicMac – It’s ok to believe something real hard and be wrong.
That applies to you more than me. Get your head out of the clouds.