Mariposa bot herders apply for job with security firm

Applicants weren't successful, but may not see prison either.

Panda Labs' Luis Corrons believed he was the victim if a practical joke when two people who had been involved in the running of the Mariposa botnet applied for a job at his company.

It wasn't a joke though: the two Spaniards who visited the company in March really were the people behind the online nicknames 'Ostiator' and 'Netkaira', who had been involved in the day-to-day running of Mariposa. After their botnet had been taken down, they quickly ran out of money and hoped they could reach an agreement with Panda, who they thought might be interested in using their knowledge.

Their involvement in the running of the botnet meant that Panda wouldn't consider hiring the bot herders and even if they had, the pair's relatively sketchy technical skills made them unsuitable as employees. They did not give up though, contacting Corrons through Twitter and meeting him again in April. When they were turned down for a second time, Netkairo claimed to have found vulnerabilities in Panda's anti-virus software.

The unusual boldness of the crooks can be explained by the fact that in Spain it is not illegal to run a botnet. The Guardia Civil, the Spanish national police, is now trying to charge the pair for stealing identities through their botnet.

More at Brian Krebs' blog here and at The Register here.

Panda's Pedro Bustamante and Defence Intelligence's Chris Davis will present a paper on "The Mariposa effect" at VB2010; registration for the conference is now open.

05 May 2010

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