Hack

Invasion of the Computer Snatchers
washingtonpost.com
By Brian Krebs
Sunday, February 19, 2006

In the six hours between crashing into bed and rolling out of it, the 21-year-old hacker has broken into nearly 2,000 personal computers around the globe. He slept while software he wrote scoured the Internet for vulnerable computers and infected them with viruses that turned them into slaves.

The young hacker doesn’t have much sympathy for his victims. “All those people in my botnet, right, if I don’t use them, they’re just gonna eventually get caught up in someone else’s net, so it might as well be mine,” 0×80 says. “I mean, most of these people I infect are so stupid they really ain’t got no business being on [the Internet] in the first place.”

A quick scroll through the first few dozen pages of the file reveals credentials his victims have used to log in to online accounts at PayPal, eBay, Bank of America and Citibank, to name just a few.

Shadowboxing With a Bot Herder
washingtonpost.com
By Brian Krebs
March 9, 2006

Witlog may in fact be the product of a new generation of “script kiddiez”; the chief distinguishing feature of this generation being that instead of using Web site flaws to deface as many Web sites as possible, these guys are breaking into thousands of home and work PCs and taking them for a virtual joyride, often times all the way to the bank.