Trik Spam Botnet 2018 Data Breach
Cybercrime / Spam Infrastructure
Trik Spam Botnet 2018 Circulating Data Breach
A spam infrastructure service in the cybercrime sector.
Compilation · ObscureIQ Intelligence
Breach Risk Index i
25/100
Lower riskHigher risk
Lower: limited current risk based on data value and recency.
Data Sensitivity i
StandardExposed data is largely lower-sensitivity. Standard identity-protection precautions are advised.
43.4MRecords
2018Year
The Breach Risk Index (BRI) is a proprietary 0–100 score rating how dangerous a breach is right now, based on how recently the data has been circulating on the dark web and how valuable it is to attackers.
Breach Summary
In June 2018, the command and control server of a malicious botnet known as the "Trik Spam Botnet" was misconfigured such that it exposed the email addresses of more than 43 million people. The researchers who discovered the exposed Russian server believe the list of addresses was used to distribute various malware strains via malspam campaigns (emails designed to deliver malware).
Full threat analysis, exploitation vectors, and principal guidance below.
11 additional sections · verified field analysis · defensive doctrine
Querying breach corpus…
Cross-referencing exposed field types…
Resolving threat-actor attribution…
Compiling principal risk advisory…
43.4M records analyzed
About Trik Spam Botnet
Trik Spam Botnet is a spam infrastructure service in the cybercrime sector.
Why They Hold Your Data
Trik Spam Botnet is a spam infrastructure service in the cybercrime sector. Services like this typically hold email addresses through account registration and normal operations.
Recent Developments
The Trik Spam Botnet dataset circulated publicly; treat as part of the standing exposure landscape.
Data Points Exposed
1 verified field types
Email Address
Breach Impact
The exposure created downstream fraud and phishing risk for those affected and drew scrutiny of Trik Spam Botnet's data protection.
Exploitation & Downstream Threats
• Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses
Principal Risk Advisory
What this means for a principal
A consumer-service breach: contact and account data supports phishing, account takeover and profile enrichment. For a high-profile principal the main risk is credible impersonation and enrichment of existing exposure.
What You Should Do
- Do not use unofficial 'am I affected' lookups; several are themselves harvesting operations.
How ObscureIQ Can Help
- Corpus confirmation: determine whether and where the principal (plus household and staff) appear in this dataset and which specific fields are exposed for them.
- Exposure mapping: cross-reference the exposed identifiers against broker-available data to size and prioritize the principal's wider footprint.
- ThreatWatch tuned to this incident's identifiers and misuse pattern (impersonation and targeting patterns, not generic credential monitoring).
TB
Threat Actor: Trik botnetConfidence: High
Motivation: Financial gain, malware delivery
Operators of the Phorpiex (Trik) worm and spam botnet active since ~2010, used to deliver malware and run extortion spam.
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