FTC cracks down on malicious ISP

By Robert Westervelt | Jun 5, 2009

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The Federal Trade Commission shut down an Internet Service Provider Thursday for engaging with cybercriminals in a slew of intentionally malicious activities.

The ISP is alleged to have hosted botnet command and control servers that run massive spam campaigns and denial of service attacks, and also websites that serve up malware, child pornography and other explicit content.

A district court judge approved an FTC request shutting down Web hosting provider Triple Fiber Network (3FN.net), operated by Pricewert LLC, who is suspected of hosting thousands of malicious sites tied to phishing, spyware and malware campaigns and botnet command and control servers.

"The ISP's upstream providers and data centers have disconnected its servers from the Internet," the FTC said in a statement issued Thursday.

The action may be only a temporary setback for cybercriminals, who are already finding alternative places to host their activities, according to security experts.

The FTC complaint alleges that 3FN.net advertised its services on Internet forums used by hackers, established to allow cybercriminals to discuss strategies, share information and buy and sell stolen data and automated attack tools. Investigators uncovered more than 3,440 messages advertising 3FN.net services. The FTC said that the site also shielded its criminal clientele by ignoring take-down requests issued by security researchers and by using other Internet protocol addresses that it controlled to evade detection.

The ISP is also suspected of deploying and operating botnets used to send out massive spam campaigns and denial of service attacks. 3FN.net allegedly recruited bot herders and hosted the command-and-control servers used to communicate with the zombied computers.

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