The Italian Honey Project

The Kraken botnet — one of the Internet’s largest and most difficult to detect in 2008 — is rearing its ugly head again.

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So far, the resurrected Kraken is primarily a spam distributor, focusing most of its output on ads for male enhancement and erectile dysfunction, Royal says. The botnet’s performance is prodigious: a single node with a DSL-speed connection was detected sending more than 600,000 spam messages in a 24-hour period.

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The resurrected Kraken is usually installed by another botnet, using botnet malware such as Butterfly, Royal reports. It’s not clear whether Kraken installation is handled by the same criminal group as Kraken operations, but it may be an example of specialized criminal groups working together, he suggests.

via Kraken Botnet Making A Resurgence, Researcher Says – botnets/Security – DarkReading.