Security Advisor
Grum Botnet Powers Down, But Not Out
Look for this botnet right to be back at operational capacity sometime soon.
This news is a somewhat of a mixed bag.
On the positive side, the third-largest botnet ring in the world has been crippled after its major C&C servers were taken offline. Authorities were even able to stop new C&C servers from fully powering up in Ukraine after the botnet punks fled due to the raids.
On the negative side, security experts believe that this ring of spam email could be back up and running at any time, especially since none of the individuals responsible were picked up during the shutdown operation.
It's like seizing the slim jim and having the car thief get away.
In fact, they've tried to revive it again this week, just to be once again smacked down. While I commend the authorities' decisive actions the second they see these guys poking their heads out, the fact is that without physically detaining those running the operation, expect attempt after attempt to occur until they find success.
For a botnet ring that is estimated to have swindled millions of unearned dollars with Grum, I'm pretty sure the promise of a continual paycheck has supplied these crooks with enough patience and determination to keep on going until they're back up and running.