NOW READ THIS
("Security Advisory")
Submitted by: Bill Hickey
NCVA List Master
NRT-0399 Russian Authorities Allegedly 'Protect' Storm Worm
Authors:
The creators of the Storm Worm botnet are known to US
authorities, but a lack of cooperation from Russian authorities in St.
Petersburg is preventing action being taken. Dmitri Alperovitch, director of
intelligence analysis and hosted security at Secure Computing, alleged that
Russian President Vladimir Putin and political influence within the Federal
Security Service (FSB) were hampering prosecution efforts. The implication,
according to an article, is that elements of Russian intelligence agencies are
protecting the city's cyber criminals.
According to the article, other security experts agree that
the Storm Worm culprits are based in Russia, but their location and identities
are not known. David Emm, senior technology consultant at Kaspersky Lab UK,
said coding similarities and packing techniques used with the worm suggest its
authors and Russian hackers known to have attacked local web sites are one and
the same.
"We don't know who they are," said F-Secure
chief research officer Mikko Hypponen, "but we believe it's a Russian
gang with an American or several Americans helping them to build the social
engineering messages and the web sites they use."
(www.theregister.co.uk 31JAN08)