The infamous shape shifting malware called Beebone has been shut down by the Europe’s Cybercrime Centre and the FBI. Beebone was controlling more than 100,000 computers a day and hackers were using it to steal information like passwords and download other programs to infect machines.
According to reports, around 12,000 victims had reported to have used a cleaning tool to remove the malware.
Beebone had the ability to get onto a computer and once its aboard, it works like a downloader application which can be controlled by the user. The FBI suspects there are criminal elements behind the malware. The Beebone could steal passwords and then be used for criminal activity. Intel Security has helped law enforcement agencies to take down this malware. Beebone also has the ability to change its identity and it was noticed that it could change its identity as much as 19 times during a day. This lets the malware avoid detection from anti-virus programs.
The malware is now known to be one of the most sophisticated hacking tool ever seen, it changes its unique address constantly and downloads a new version of itself and can detect when its being attacked or even studied.
The Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce set up by the European Union to tackle cross-border internet crime carried out operation Beebone. After a long haul, the team had finally managed to take down the malware. They had stopped its connection to servers, however, experts say that the cleanup process will be complicated.