The Trojan, dubbed “HEUR:Backdoor.Java.Agent.a” by researchers at Kaspersky Lab in Moscow, is written entirely in Java, the independent software platform that can be installed on almost any computer.
Once infected, likely through a malware-hosting website, a computer compromised by this Trojan is drafted into a botnet, an array of machines secretly controlled by remote administrators, and used to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks against other websites, knocking them offline temporarily.