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Feds Working to Stop Worms
mbenzi writes "This article from GovExec describes how the feds worked to prevent a worm that could have been orders of magnitude worse than Code Red. Short on details, but an interesting timeline."
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"some of the most brilliant hackers in the world"?
SInce when are Skript Kiddeez brilliant hackers?
This article is stupefyingly filled with crap.. the whole alliterative narrative to make a "worm" into something more than a program is scary. "Clones" rather than "copies" "larva" rather than "small". "zombies" "Slither" "poisonous venom".
Ye ghods.. is this a tech article, or color text for a M:TG card?
maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
I had all sorts of witty comments to make on this, but I just deleted them because it's all too pathetic.
I guess the point is to impress on people that cyberspace, too, is just like a big ol' Hollywood movie with good ol' Uncle Sam well in control. Or something.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Pointless? How is hunting worms pointless? Just because there will appear new ones doesn't mean we shouldn't clean machines that still have Code Red or Nimda and try to correct security related bugs before some new worm exploits them.
Your comparison to **AA is somehow off since **AA is more about a few big organisations wanting to control everybody while worms are something everybody except for a few individuals want to get rid of.
Why are we paying to have the government fix Microsoft's bugs?
Is is me or does this article read like the cross between a propaganda article, a typical narrative from a Batman TV episode ("Will our heros be able to complete the task? Stay Tuned Bat-Fans!!!"), and a recruitment Ad for the FBI, CIA, or any of the Armed forces?
Dolemite
Save the World! Use a Quote!
Ye gads that was horrible. This has to be my favorite bit of hyperbole:
Worms were the most vicious new beasts to stalk the Internet.
I think Morris would have a few words of disagreement about that.
So, we have a section: Early July.
Then the next section: Second Week of July which starts
Weeks passed.
And, to top it all off we go over to McAfee and search and get the following:
Search Results
We found no records matching the following criteria:
Virus name containing "leaves".
This has to be BS of the first and worst order.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Looks like this article was written for people who just barely understand computers. It has more buzzwords and made up buzzwords than I've ever seen in an article like this. The steps they outline are ahh, well, kinda a "Well no kidding." setup and the details pretty shallow.
Personaly, I think that this is nothing more than another smoke screen to make people feel safe that the gov will eventually do something about a technology they barley understand but "know" is dangerous.
Also, does anyone else think that even the gov were to take steps to stop any type of worm, that privatly owned companies horribly configured servers and over seas servers that are unpatch are going to get automagicaly fixed cuz the US Gov says so? This is just about FUD if you ask me.
You think it is a laugh. People who spend 10 or 20 hours a week (of their spare time, more often than not) tracking down these viruses and the criminals behind them probably disagree.
One of the largest IRC networks was recently humbled by attacks from worm-infected computers. Every other large IRC network deals with several new infections each week. It is only because the script kiddies (mostly) restrain their attacks to IRC, and because IRC admins go to great lengths to fight the worms, that more damage is not done by infected computers.
IRC networks are particularly easy targets, since each server is usually run by separate person or company, and the FBI is not interested in investigating cases unless $5,000 of damages can be claimed by one group -- never mind if there are one or two thousand infected computers that could be wiped out by a malicious kiddie. If the criminals get better at hiding their tracks or their commands, they may become more brazen and attack bigger targets.
Personally, I am glad that somebody in law enforcement is taking active steps to investigate and shut down these worms. They can actually punish the criminals behind the attacks. Private parties can, at most, disperse the botnet or terminate the attacker's account.
Personally, I wish they'd spend a little bit of the money on public education. Start giving basic "Home Internet Security: 101" type courses in high schools so that the new crop of wIdiots have atleast a little backing in knowledge to take home with them. Maybe they can secure their parents machines and have an immediate effect on the state of things.
When you consider the sheer number of broadband subscribers in North America, and factor the number of them potentially vulnerable to any number of infiltration tactics, we can easily find ourselves facing 20k 1.5MBit connections. By my count, that makes for a LOT of aggregate bandwidth. DDoSs, information/identity theft are all infinitely possible.
This story only goes to foster the need for knowledge; all it takes is one, or a small group of concerted individuals who plan their attacks carefully, and the Internet can be crippled to a degree that we haven't seen thus far.
Corporations are another story. I believe firmly that they should be held fiscally responsible for the damage done at the behest of their bandwidth and servers. It's their responsibility to hire competent security personell to prevent attacks from using their larger-than-normal resources to aid in an attack. Maybe then competent IT people would suddenly find themselves facing thousands of job openings again, because it would be too expensive a risk for big companies not to have them on staff.
Every connection with an educated person at the helm who keeps track of security updates and is mindful of what they install/run is one less connection that can be used to attack those of us who do take this care.
</RANT>
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
It's funny to me that the Gov't thinks it's all high and mighty, then I do a search at Sophos.com and find that the "leaves" worm wasn't all that "Brilliant", it's just another W32 worm.
Quick Link: Here
Horray for the Gov't, they "prevented" (i'd rather say 'postponed') the Leaves Worm.
All he has to do is send a little e-mail of what the "code word" to activate the "zombies" and all Hell breaks loose.
IT Security Admins do this every day at work.
Just my 2 Cents