Fergie's Tech Blog

Botnet Operator Taps into Google Analytics

Tom Sanders writes on vnunet.com:

A botnet operator is using Google Analytics to collect additional details about his network of zombie computers.

Google Analytics offers free site visitor statistics, tracking the number individuals that visit a website and their geographic location. The service uses special html-code that is embedded onto a web site that alerts the Google server every with every visitor.

In this case however, a botnet operator embedded the code into a variant of the Opanki virus, McAfee reported on its blog. Similar to the website statistics, this provides the malware's author with feedback on the number of infections and their geographic location.

posted by Fergie @ 9/18/2006 04:31:00 PM