Google frets over Vietnam hacktivist botnet
Hackers used malware to establish a botnet in Vietnam as part of an apparently politically motivated attack with loose ties to the Operation Aurora attacks that hit Google and many other blue chip firms late last year, according to new research from McAfee and Google. Unknown miscreants used malware disguised as Vietnamese …
On Vietnamese software and Vietnamese trojans.
As someone who types Vietnamese, I've never used VPSKey - the application associated with the trojan. I use UniKey. It's free and (better still) it's open source. My wife uses it, and so do many of her friends.
And while I have little love for the Socialist Republic of 'Nam, I'm a little surprised it is playing hardball with botnets. China is an emerging economic superpower - hard to push around. Việt Nam is a lower-middle class economy that depends heavily on exports. I believe it would be susceptible to a boycott. Most of the mediocrities running the country seem to have only two goals at this point: keeping power, and growing their GDP at increasing rates until they think of something better. Botnets don't really assist with the first aim, and they could put the second into jeopardy.
However, I have heard that their Internal Security is under increasing influence from the Chinese government. So perhaps it is Beijing rather than Hà Nội who is pushing the idea of a very Vietnamese botnet.
In my opinion, it's a shame. Most Vietnamese on the street don't like nor trust the Chinese government. After all, the last time they had a war was in 1979. Nor would they love the idea of trojans infecting Western computers. Due to the wave of boat people in the 70s and 80s, many Vietnamese live out of the country - in places like Melbourne, Houston, Montreal and Paris.
Oh no, Spock's gone gunnysack
"McAfee classifies the Trojan as Vulcanbot."
That is all.
Sign up, sign up for The Register's weekly IT security newsletter - click here
Popular Whitepapers
- The BI Inflexion Point
Information is a right, not a privilege - VPN security - if you want it, come and get it
Attention WiFi hotspotters: You want it - The Register Guide to iSCSI
A primer on Internet SCSI, a protocol to transport SCSI commands over IP - Secure Mobile Working
Beyond the Technology - The Impact of IT Security Attitudes
Putting the pieces in place for effective security delivery - The Register guide to unified communications
A primer on the implications of unified communications for enterprise IT


