Researchers at HCL Technology, a strategic partner of CA, found a hacked server on Amazon’s Web Services’ cloud infrastructure working as a command-and-control server for the Zeus botnet. The researchers said the intruders probably found a server — a “target of opportunity” — and hacked it to install their malware. The Zeus server has been removed. The Zeus botnet has been responsible for losses of over $100 million, mostly from bank fraud.
Security company Arbor Networks in August found a botnet using Twitter as a command-and-control channel for its bots.
In September, Symantec researchers found the Chinese-language Grups Trojan using the Google Groups newsgroup escape2sun to distribute commands.
Want to make any predictions?
InfoWorld story here. “Hackers find a home in Amazon’s EC2 cloud”
Register story from August: “Twitter transformed into botnet command channel”
Register: “Trojan taps Google Groups as command network“
Tom Kelchner