Hackers team up to spread malware
Two separate groups of cyber criminals appear to be working in collaboration to help distribute their malicious software, botnet researcher Jose Nazario told ZDNet.
Nazario, in an interview with the tech news site, said that "we are seeing Zeus and Avalanche working together to promote growth. We appear to be seeing one of the groups, Avalanche, promoting Zeus malware." Zeus is an advanced Trojan that is designed to steal sensitive data from infected computers and remain undetected by anti-virus software.
Avalanche is the name given to a group that maintains a botnet similar to that run by the Zeus criminals, two of whom were recently arrested in the UK. ZDNet reports that cyber crime investigator Vincent Hanna told them that the relationship between the two groups was a commercial one, with the Zeus team "renting" the use of the Avalanche botnet.
