Newsletter Archives

• Your ‘free’ VPN may actually be a malware bot

  Posted on June 10, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.24 • 2024-06-10

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Law-enforcement authorities, coordinating the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and similar agencies in Germany, Singapore, and Thailand, have arrested the leaders of a worldwide botnet that relied on people downloading and installing software to create “free” virtual private networks (VPNs).

  Before the arrests were announced on May 29, 2024, more than 19 million infected computers in some 190 countries were being used by hackers for credit-card fraud, Dark Web operations, and a lot else. Jailing the so-called 911 S5 organizers and shutting them down dismantled what FBI director Christopher Wray described as “likely the world’s largest botnet ever.”

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.24.0, 2024-06-10).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Public Defender AVG Secure, botnet, CyberGhost, DewVPN, ExpressVPN, Hotspot Shield, IVPN, MaskVPN, Mullvad, Newsletters, NordVPN, PAirVPN, PaladinVPN, PersonalVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN, ProxyGate, Security, ShieldVPN, ShineVPN, Surfshark, VPNs, Windscribe Pro

• Recently updated topics you may have missed

  Posted on October 19, 2017 at 02:09 CDT by Kirsty • Comment in the Forums

  It’s possible you may have missed recent security updates that have been made to Chrome, Firefox, Thunderbird, Java and Flash Player. The following topics have now been updated with the US-Cert alerts, with links:

  Chrome Security Update: US-CERT (Browser)

  Mozilla Security Update: US-CERT (Firefox)

  Mozilla Security Update: US-CERT (Thunderbird)

  Oracle Security Update: US-CERT (Java etc)

  1000002: Links to Flash update resources

  Subscribers to those topics should have received emails with details of the new posts. However, we have had some reports that some people are currently not receiving those emails. If your subscription emails aren’t working, please let us know.

   
  Also updated recently is AKB3000005: On the subject of Botnets, which was posted last month, but promptly disappeared in a backup-reset of the site.

  Other AskWoody, botnet, Chrome, Firefox, Flash, Java, Thunderbird

• Now’s your chance to clean up your GameOver Zeus infection

  Posted on June 9, 2014 at 14:00 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Were you GOZ-smacked?

  InfoWorld Tech Watch.

  Windows Patches/Security botnet, GameOver Zeus, GOZ

• US PCs march to the sound of a botnet drummer

  Posted on October 16, 2010 at 07:14 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report contains interesting information about malware worldwide. The cleaning reports for botnet infections are particularly enlightening.

  See my InfoWorld Tech Watch report.

  Windows Patches/Security botnet, Conficker, Security Intelligence Report, ZeuS