The Pupil Usurps the Master—Not So Fast

Since as far back as I can remember there has always been talk of rivalry and wars between various malware creators. The testosterone-fuelled battles may have even been encouraged by the media running stories of how such-and-such botnet “has X million nodes,” egging the botnet herders to try and outwit and outgrow each other in a competition to grab market share.
 
Take, for example, the Zeus botnet (Trojan.Zbot). This has been around for some time and has now developed into a mature piece of malware that is widely sold and used by wannabe eCriminals to steal information from hapless victims throughout the Internet. The ease of use afforded by the Zeus Trojan builder has helped it achieve its notorious status as one of the most widely seen bots in the world.
 
As with the gold rush in the previous centuries, some people learned that it was easier and more profitable to supply the tools to the (continue reading...)