Bredolab botnet shut down

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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Bredolab, a botnet believed to have spread its tentacles around the world, infecting some 30 million computers, has been beheaded following action from the Dutch National Crime Squad.

Dutch police announced the takedown of the botnet, which was used to distribute malware to unsuspecting computer users. The authorities were assisted by members of the computer security community, and Netherlands-based hosting provider LeaseWeb, who provided the servers that were running Bredolab’s command systems.

In total, 143 computer servers are now no longer under the control of malicious hackers.

Instead, the botnet’s control center is under the command of the authorities, and they are able to use it to display a warning to owners of infected computers:

SophosLabs has seen very large numbers of samples of malware connected with the Bredolab botnet – so any action which has been…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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