Cyber-Crime Group Behind Ramnit Botnet Hit By Europol

Ramnit, a malicious software has infected about 3.2 million computers worldwide since last five years. Europol, in an operation successfully took down the cyber-crime group that was using Ramnit to infect the computer systems worldwide. Tech-giants like Symantec, Microsoft and number of other industry partners seized the servers and other infrastructure belonging to the group. The large number of infected computer systems are believed to be majorly from India, Indonesia, US, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Philippines, Egypt etc. Reportedly, the virus Ramnit offers a number of ways to attackers manipulate the victim.

cybercrime-group-behind-ramnit-hit-by-europol

A detailed report by Symantec informs that Ramnit came into existence in the form of worm in 2010 and spread rapidly because of its capability to self-propagate. The worm was further developed by cybercriminals and Zeus Trojan was usually used to piggyback Ramnit. Ramnit is now a full-fledged cyber-crime tool capable of stealing personal user files, bank credentials, cookies, passwords etc.

Ramnit offers attacker with six major modules for attack. Once the attacker successfully infects system with Ramnit, it allows attacker to monitor and manipulate victim’s web session which may include stealing bank credentials and passwords. This is included in spy mode of Ramnit and is one of the most powerful features. The cookie grabber module steals session cookies from web browser and sends them to attacker. Drive scanner module gives unauthorised remote access to victim’s hard disk drive and attacker can modify files on HDD. Several other modules also allows to gain remote access to system.

Ramnit has affected the computers worldwide. Some of the worse hit countries are India (27%), Indonesia (18%), Vietnam (9%), US (6%), Philippines (5%) etc. A report by Symantec claims that the number of affected computers have been decreasing over time but Ramnit is still very active.

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#-Link-Snipped-# to download Ramnit removal tool by Symantec.

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#

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