A group of malicious hackers who attacked Twitter and the Chinese search engine Baidu are also apparently running a for-rent botnet, according to new research.
The so-called Iranian Cyber Army also took credit last month for an attack on TechCrunch's European website. In that incident, the group installed a page on TechCrunch's site that redirected visitors to a server that bombarded their PCs with exploits in an attempt to install malicious software.
Researchers with a security startup called Seculert have traced the malicious server behind those attacks and found indications that the Iranian Cyber Army may also be running a botnet.
They've found an administration interface where people who want to rent the botnet can describe the machines they would like to infect and upload their own malware for distribution by the botnet, said Aviv Raff , CTO and co-founder of Seculert. The company runs a cloud-based service that alerts its customers to new malware, exploits and other cyber threats.
"You provide the number of machines and their region," Raff said. "You then provide the malware download URL, and they will do the malware installation for you."
There are many computer crime gangs that create botnets, or networks of compromised computers, that can then be rented to other players in the cybercrime industry, such as spammers.
Raff said Seculert was able to see the administration panel as it was left unprotected. His company has since notified the provider where the page is hosted and contacted law enforcement.
