Simda Botnet Taken Down

You may think you are in control of your computer but are you? Have you ever heard the term “in the background?” That is computer terminology meaning your computer is performing a task while you the operator are doing something else.

Most programs that run in the background are harmless and helpful. But your computer may be part of a botnet. A computer that is part of a botnet is known as a zombie.  Now the question for black people remains; what is your computer doing behind your back?

On April 9th, 2015 a joint effort of international law enforcement bodies and private security and technology companies came together to shut down one the largest botnets in history. The Simda botnet is believed to have infected more than 770,000 computers in more than 190 countries around the world including the US, Canada, Russia and United Kingdom.

Last week’s botnet takedown is just the latest international operation to shut down a botnet. Another separate takedown targeted Beebone, an extremely elusive botnet that provided a captive audience of PCs  that were infected with a backdoor. A backdoor is a method that a hacker uses to gain remote unauthorized access to a computer often remaining undetected. This backdoor provides access to criminals who were looking for an easy way to quickly install malware on large numbers of computers and impact huge numbers of people around the world.

The AACR keeps things simple. A botnet is a network of computers that are communicating with one another or a master computer and working together to perform a task. These computers are usually working together to launch denial of service attacks against a target computer or network.  This means that hundreds or thousands of computers that have become enslaved in a botnet are instructed to contact a particular website repeatedly causing the website, computer or network to become overwhelmed and stop working. It happens almost everyday and your computer could be part of the attack and you would never know.

Botnets are also designed to steal personal information including passwords, social security numbers, credit card details, email contacts, addresses and telephone numbers. This data may be used in crimes including identity theft, fraud, spamming, and malware distribution. Now suddenly the question becomes relevant to any black person who owns a computer; What is your computer doing behind your back?

The Simda botnet was known for distributing banking malware, installing backdoors on hundreds of thousands of machines across the world. One of them may have been yours.

To determine if your computer was part of the Simda botnet visit the Kaspersky Labs Simda Botnet Free Scanner.

Breaking It Down

The number of computers affected was put at over 770,000 machines. That number will surely get bigger as law enforcement continues their investigation. By some estimates the number could be as high as 2 million computers. And that is just this botnet. There could be thousands or hundreds of thousands of botnets big and small all over the Internet. You have to know if you are in control of your machine. Practice computer safety and security and use the tools like the Kaspersky scanner to make sure your machine is yours alone. 

Don’t play around with this. Your computer could literally be committing crimes whenever you turn it on. Hackers are clever and have done really sinister things like using other people’s computers to store information in hidden files. And the owner of the computer has no idea. It is very possible that you could be a victim of a hacker and not know it. Be suspicious and ask yourself; what is my computer doing behind my back?