Stolen-data Trove Offers Look Inside A Botnet

Joe Stewart, a SecureWorks Inc. botnet expert who was not involved in Prevx's research, said that last year, he helped shut down a command-and-control server for a huge botnet that had infected more than 378,000 machines and had stolen more than 460,000 usernames and passwords.

There are countless other smaller botnets, set up by less sophisticated criminals who steal as much data as they can and simply pull up stakes, and do it all over again, once their operation has been detected.

"The level of amateurness speaks to how widespread it is," Stewart said. "Literally anybody with a little bit of computer knowledge at all, if they have the criminal bent, can get access to one of these Trojans and get it out there and start stealing people's data."

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