14 DAY TRIAL // There’s a new player on the Latin American botnet scene. It’s called AlbaBotnet and it's being tested since early 2012.
Kaspersky experts say the botnet has not been used by cybercriminals to make any money, at least not yet. However, in the trial phase, the threat is used to deliver targeted phishing attacks designed to steal sensitive information from the customers of two major financial institutions from Chile.
AlbaBotnet is similar to other threats spotted over the past period in Latin America, such as PiceBOT or vOlk-Botnet.
“It uses the same encryption system found in several versions of PiceBOT and vOlk-Botnet. So it’s quite possible that the underlying crypto code is shared between them,” Kaspersky Lab Expert Jorge Mieres explained.
The botnet includes an automated malware builder and a component that’s designed to automatically send out emails. These features allow cybercriminals to customize their infection campaigns.
Kaspersky proactively detects AlbaBotnet as Trojan.Win32.VBKrypt.pitu.