Security experts at Kaspersky Lab noted that the first quarter of 2012 started with a bang after a quiet 2011, because botmasters failed to come up with anything new last year. But in the first three months of 2012, the experts noticed cybercriminals using a ‘fileless' bot to build a zombie-net; and rising targeted attacks against Mac Operating System.
Cautioning users, the Lab experts said the criminals were targeting organisations that used both Windows and Mac platforms. Kasperkey Labs experts noticed these criminals use two Trojans — one for Mac and the other for Windows — to gain access to confidential records.
They were found loading the appropriate malware (based on the platform on which the targeted machine was in use at that time) and these Trojans were found getting commands from a single control centre
Criminals were found using a loophole that worked in both Windows and Mac OS X environments to make the initial intrusion into the system, security experts explained.
“Due to the careless attitude of many Mac users and the lack of security on their computers, millions of machines were compromised,” said Yury Namestnikov, Senior Malware Analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
Anti-virus companies and law enforcement bodies jointly took over control of the 110000 Hlux (Kelihos) botnet, shut down several Zeus botnet control centres, that targeted online banking users and arrested a number of Russian cyber criminals in the first quarter of 2012, said the Kaspersky Lab report.