Akbot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Akbot is the name of a virus that added about 1.3 million computers to a botnet network.[1]

[edit] Infection

Akbot is an IRC controlled backdoor program. It allows an outside user to take control of the infected computer. Akbot operates by joining IRC servers and the waiting for further instructions. Once installed, Akbot can be used to gather data, kill processes, or perform DDOS attacks.[2] The size of the botnet is unknown, but it is believed to be large enough to cause a University of Pennsylvania server to crash after the botmaster conspired with a student there to launch a DDOS attack on several IRC servers and a security forum called ssgroup.org.

[edit] Source

The author, 18 year old New Zealand based botmaster, "AKILL", was caught during an international investigation, Operation: Bot Roast, during which his home was raided by New Zealand police and an FBI agent. He was charged, and convicted in April of 2008.[3][4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Heise.de article
  2. ^ NAI article
  3. ^ PC World article
  4. ^ "AKILL Convicted - Are we safer now?"
Malware logo    This malware-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.