Microsoft Acknowledges Threat of ZLoader Criminal Botnet
Table of Contents
- How is the Botnet Used?
- What Type of Action did Microsoft Take to Stop the Botnet?
- What Does ZLoader Mean?
- Which Tech Security Specialists Partnered with Microsoft to Take Down the Threat?
- What, Exactly, did Microsoft’s Disruption Do?
- When did the ZLoader Botnet Begin?
- In What Ways Did ZLoader Attack From 2019 to 2022?
- By Steven
- Published: Apr 15, 2022
- Last Updated: Apr 15, 2022
A ZLoader botnet has been wreaking havoc across the world. Microsoft recently highlighted the botnet’s global operation to halt its progress.
How is the Botnet Used?
The botnet consists of 65+ web domains created to communicate with and control hosts that were infected. The aim of the botnet is to steal and sell valuable information.
What Type of Action did Microsoft Take to Stop the Botnet?
Microsoft is working together with a group of cybersecurity specialists to take down the Zloader botnet. The tech giant and its digital security partners have made technical and legal advances to disrupt the threat. The team of cybersecurity specialists obtained control over the domains used to interact with infected hosts.
What Does ZLoader Mean?
The details of ZLoader were recently publicized by a manager at Microsoft’s Digital Crimes unit named Amy Hogan-Burney. ZLoader is a reference to a network of computers and other computing devices at companies, individual homes, academic institutions, hospitals, and additional medical facilities throughout the world.
ZLoader is operated by a worldwide web-based criminal gang that uses malware as a service. The malware steals sensitive information and uses it in an extortion scheme.
Which Tech Security Specialists Partnered with Microsoft to Take Down the Threat?
Some of the cybersecurity industry’s top names worked with Microsoft to proactively thwart the botnet. Those companies include Avast, ESET, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, Lumen Black Lotus Labs, and Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center.
What, Exactly, did Microsoft’s Disruption Do?
Microsoft’s disruption of the botnet redirected the domains, ultimately preventing the criminals responsible for the botnet from communicating with the targeted devices. Furthermore, the disruption created more than 300 additional backup web domains through a specialized algorithm that was removed as a component of the operation.
When did the ZLoader Botnet Begin?
Digital forensics professionals insist the ZLoader botnet is a spinoff of the Zeus banking trojan that debuted in the fall of 2019. ZLoader has since been modified with alterations that have empowered digital miscreants to obtain the malware from the internet and use it for nefarious purposes.
Part of ZLoader’s appeal up until Microsoft’s recent disruption was its ability to evade digital defenses. In fact, ZLoader was advanced to the point that it could disable some antivirus protection by implementing harmful code into the target computer’s processes.
ZLoader provided hackers with remote access to computers, stole targets’ banking data, and even stole user credentials. In fact, ZLoader was advanced to the point that it could collect cookies and capture screenshots of the compromised computers.
In What Ways Did ZLoader Attack From 2019 to 2022?
The digital criminals behind ZLoader enhanced the attack from its original form as a financial trojan into a complex malware-as-a-service that generated revenue through sales to other hackers. The ZLoader originators sold access to ZLoader to other cybercriminals who used it to transmit ransomware and Cobalt Strike payloads.
Recent ZLoader campaigns have used ads on Google to infiltrate target computers, transmitted phishing emails, and used remote management software to compromise machines. It is particularly interesting to note that the digital forensics specialists who analyzed the malware’s activities dating back to the winter of 2020 found most of the attacks stem from a couple of affiliates.
