Malicious Distributed Computing

Jeremy Erwin writes "In this whitepaper, Brandon Wiley suggests a possible design for a "superworm", a coordinated network of worm nodes. Typically worms are designed to infect as many hosts as possible, but as overly rapid growth can lead to early detection, this is a suboptimal strategy. The worm, dubbed Curious Yellow uses communication between worm nodes to ensure optimal infection rates."

Comments

Precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

the Linux based 'Slapper' worm (link at end of message) was the first worm to create a peer-to-peer network of infected nodes. communication was basic, allowing the network to learn its own topology, and launch DDoS attacks as a single unit when commanded from a single remote location. the piece that Slapper is missing is authentication. imagine if the Slapper worm was written so that it carried with it a public key, and used that key to verify any command sent to it. the worm could be designed to not even reply to UDP requests whose signature fail, making remote detection completely impossible. signed messages would allow the worm author to remotely control the entire network of infected nodes exclusively, distributing patches to combat wormbusters, upgrades to allow the worm to infect new systems, and commands to launch DDoS attacks on targets of his choosing.

it's going to happen. you heard it here first.

- -s.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: i am sllort and i post AC

iD8DBQE9uR/OKpz2COjVE3YRAv1tAJ9HtLZ0AQDOfUvIGh4j z/ /N+aOtBQCgpQyI
igaqDD9fmOA8+/7Apub1nAs=
=XxoQ
- ----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-959 385.html

How to 0wn the Internet in your Spare Time.

[nweaver]

A better cittion on worms and their strategies: How to 0wn the Internet in your Spare Time by Stuart Staniford, Vern Paxson, and myself.

The warhol paper largely got rolled into the "0wn the Internet" paper.