CSO

The HerbalKings (no not the Worcester Area Friday night octogenarian dance club) were shut down today by an Illinois district court having sent over 10 billion (no this is not a new McDonald’s sold record) email messages a day from 35,000 zombie computers.

The Illinois district court did place the Mega-D botnet up for sale to the highest bidder and rumor has it that a startup purchased the software with the intent to license it to the Human Firewall project. Bankers in need of cash reportedly bid the asking price to a new high for illicit software. Other corporations and desperate CISO’s are rushing to get in on the act to shore up their awareness programs.

As with other criminal groups online, the activities of the HerbalKings were remarkably international in scope. The group was illegally selling drugs like Propecia, Lipitor, Celebrex and Zoloft and shipping them out of India. I’ll have to find a new supplier since I was hitting the Propecia pretty hard.

It did not operate a licensed pharmacy in the United States since the add-on costs of these drugs place the price out of reach for most Americans. The F.T.C. said it was basing its Web sites in China, fulfilling credit cards from the Republic of Georgia and the Mediterranean island of Cyprus and transferring funds between members using ePassporte, an electronic money network. The business process flow is also up for sale as a few large Wall Street firms are looking for an effective method to address their financial concerns.

By the way, the Worcester Area Octo’s are working hard to secure the HerbalKings domain name. They are holding a sale on Celebrex at the corner of Maple and Main this Weekend.