Zeus-Hosting Russian ISP Taken Offline
PROXIEZ-NET, an Internet Service Provider based in Russia, that cyber-thieves popularly used for stealing logins for online banking is said to have been cut off from the Internet on May 14, 2010 following services severed from DIGERNET, the ISP's upstream provider. PROXIEZ-NET harbored around 13 command-and-control servers of the notorious Zeus Trojan prior to being cut off from DIGERNET.
As per the reports, while PROXIEZ served as the Internet host for keylogging software of hackers as well as for gathering and maintaining stolen data. Describing the application of keylogging software, the security researchers said that thieves frequently use it for grabbing users' login information for Internet banking. The process includes loading a short code onto a PC that follows every keystroke, after which it transmits the captured data onto the remote attacker's system.
F-Secure's Chief Research Officer, Miko Hypponen, said that it was extremely good to have the latest development. Criminals who were utilizing the ISP to carry out malicious activities were nearly sure to have moved onto another service, he noted. BBC published this on May 17, 2010.
