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Microsoft Reward Leads to Arrest of Sasser Suspect
tritone writes "According to this article on CNET, it was a reward from Microsoft that led to the arrest of the perpertrator of the Sasser Windows Worm. This is the first success for Microsoft's Antivirus Award Program, a $5 million fund to reward people for coming forward with information about those who release major worms and viruses."
Good. All anti-MS "They should have written more secure software" comments aside, I am glad they were able to catch this guy if it is him. I am glad the reward worked. In the end there is one person that is really, truly responsible for the virus and that is the virus writer. Now I wonder how much of the $5m pot the informer(s) will get.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
I suppose throwing money at the problem is proactive, but hardly clever.
In this complex and often terrifying world, it's nice to know that some things never change.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Wonder what's the ROI for releasing a virus and then ratting on yourself.
Wonder what's the ROI for releasing a virus by framing an asshole and then ratting on said asshole.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It appears the reward is only offered once a virus has done some serious damage, so it only has the effect of stopping one virus coder at a time. It does nothing to stop aspiring young virus writers from aspiring to be virus writers.
Decode these
How much money does Microsoft have to spend making their operating system, and how perfect and secure does it have to be?
Maybe if it was not for the virus writers, the cost of Windows would be cheaper. Maybe beacuse of the virus writers Microsoft has to spend more money?
I think it is horrible for someone to defend a criminal because the criminal had oppertunity to commit a crime.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Part of the agreement should be that when you submit the vulnerability to MS, you agree to keep quiet for X amount of time, they agree to give you some reward. After X amount of time, you should be able to then release the information to the public.
Of course, the only problem is, if you told them and kept quiet, chances are someone else is going to find that same vulnerability who might not play as nice.
What?
1) They can show he had the ability to write it.
2) They might have people who he told he wrote it.
3) There might be evidance on his computer.
4) They can look at how it spread, and what he had access to.
5) They might have been tracking his internet activities, seeing where he was and what he was doing (they had probably cause).
I think there are many things the police can do to find out if it is him.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
It has deterent value. It says if you become good at writing viruses you will get nailed. Maybe MS does not care about the young kid messing around who does not damage anything. Microsoft is showing good restraint.
Plus, I cant help but think that comment is typical of how people treat MS. They either complain they are not doing enough or too much.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
OK, I want some of that dough.
The article mentions that Microsoft used some technical means to confirm the informants' information but the informants did not use technical means to identify the guy. This leads to some questions:
Does Microsoft somehow bug your code if you use MS products to produce it? If I remember correctly some of the Word macro viruses had an ID number somewhere inside them that let MS identify the copy of Word that originally produced the virus.
Is such a serial number/product ID what MS used to confirm the informant's information?
It would not necessarily need to be a number. Deliberate variations in the code produced by a compiler from one machine to the next could be used as a fingerprint.
Barring that, was there some other technical means that could have been used to locate the author?
If I wanted to be a Anti-Virus Bounty hunter is my best bet learning to decompile code or to hang around on IRC chat channels and either encourage other users to write viruses so I can turn them in later, or make friends with real virus writers so I can turn them in?
Maybe a piece of reference code can be made available on a website and people can compile it on a range of machines and MS compilers. The resulting code can be compared and to see if the machine/compiler pair can be identified from the executable. If two machines with the same OS and developement tools create code with slight differences I would begin to worry if I were a virus writer.
I am amazed, with the number of open access points, that someone ever gets caught.Guess they can't help bragging to their friends.
Any strategy contains the seeds of its own failure. In this case, bribing criminals to hand-over their own is a classic but short-term solution.
Firstly, it sets the stage for blackmail. If one isolated hacker is worth $5m, how much is an unreleased worm worth? Probably much, much more. I'd not be surprised if MS regularly get asked for money upfront before worms are released. Paying out will only make this worse.
Secondly, it is a Darwinian filter. Yes, you can pay to get hold of an isolated criminal. No, you cannot use this tactic against criminal gangs. $5m is not a lot when compared to the value of a large botnet. Setting bounties will eliminate the free-lancers and leave the stage open for more organized criminals who will probably be more agressive in using zombied PCs for criminal acts (child porn, DDoS, etc.)
Thirdly, it is prejudicial and likely to lead to the arrest of innocent people. Given that any zombied PC can be used to launch a worm attack, how can any evidence be trusted? Confessions, too, are unreliable. Bounties are rapidly turned into lynchings.
Lastly, it is a distraction from the real issue: Windows' fundamental security weaknesses. Microsoft must release a secure Windows within the next 12 months or risk permanent damage to their brand. Paying bounties for worm writers fools no-one: Windows remains insecure and there remain an unlimited supply of smart criminals happy to take advantage of that.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
It has deterent value. It says if you become good at writing viruses you will get nailed. Maybe MS does not care about the young kid messing around who does not damage anything. Microsoft is showing good restraint.
It may deter kids but certainly not pros. Rewards rely on enough individuals knowing who commited a crime so that at least one betrays the criminal. With kids that's easy since they're publishing their exploits as part of a game. With pros, no way. When terrorists and organized criminals write and distribute viruses, expect the MS reward to have much less impact.
Prevention through proper security, OTOH, cuts against both kids and pros. Cut out the exploit and you cut out the damage. Of course, MS management knows this...
Naked Rayburn
...is that the software system design, default behaviour, and security level is so poor that a 17 year old can easily exploit it and cause so much damage.
Don't be so paranoid. They'd have to pay an awful lot of talented people to get the volume of linux viruses up to a level where windows would compare favorably. And that effort would be nowhere near the risk of the horrible PR that would be generated when someone revealed that MS was paying them to write these linux viruses.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Look, if an anti-social 19 year old can create such a devasting worm, I am afraid the odds are against this strategy of fighting the problem. What, there must be a 100 MILLION other kids just like him, playing away on their windows computer, looking to be more than just a pimple faced teenager.
Let's see, ingredients to a killer windows worm:
1. Anti-social teenager
2. windows computer
3. internet connection
4. some free time (see 1.)
Sorry, this is just not the way to resolve the problem. It is just too easy, not even worth celebrating. No wonder MS is ONLY investing 5M in this method (what is 5M to MS?).
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
The patch for Sasser was available 3 weeks before the virus was released. I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay an admin to install a patch before the virus hits, than to pay him because he's busting his ass fixing a problem that he should have avoided.
... a VERY good hacker releasing a virus but making it look like it came from someone else, perhaps someone the hacker is at war with, or just some random victim? And tyhen joe victim would be stuck, trying to prove they didn't do it, with the evidence all over their computer.
sucks. It could be done JUST to get the reward for that matter, although that would be risky, but still possible.
microsoft got a mega buhzillion dollars in the bank from not hiring coders and not insisting on great code since forever and a day. I think what is more appropriate when money is being talked about is a class action lawsuit from thousands of joe MS users, not the government, joe users large and small who have been victimised by insecure OS that they got *suckered and conned* into running, and I mean suckered by their abusive monopoly tactics and vendor lockins for OS that happened over the past decade especially. Most people didn't "choose" to run microsoft, they got faked into it by it being installed on their boxes when they bought them. Then all of microsofts profits from not doing their job, combined with the ridiculous no warranty deal that profitable software gets, turned into the victimized end user's problems, where you get borken computers, anger, frustration, and in the case of businesses, millions of dollars in actual-for real damages, probably billions, I don't know. A big ole pile of cash, call it that. I bet in a lot of cases the constant and recurring damages exceed the cost of the software installed by many factors.
That sucks too. viruses and worms are BOTH the fault of evil hackers AND filthy rich monopolists who did NOT give a care about security until the past coupla of years, and even then it was half assed. MS as a total company gets it's corporate mindshare from william gates, always has, and he just don't and never has given a crap as long as he can rake in the dough, he's an extreme predator, and I don't care how "compassionate" and"giving" with his "foundation" some mafia don is with ill gotten gains, he's still a mafia chieftain, and made his loot by being a crook. Easy to give away free money you stole and conned people for.
Same with MS and gates, he needs to go to JAIL as far as I am concerned,he's a chronic serial crook, a repeat offender to boot, hidng behind the corporate wall of almost near immunity, and he shows no sign of stopping being a crook, although I will grant he's apparently trying to fix security in longhorn, but that's a long ways offf and doesn't address past crimes, and I think he's only doing it because he is being forced to by market pressures.
Seriously, this is just the known "cost of doing business" mentality again. If it's cheaper to pay a reward than to develop a secure product in the first place, that's what MS will do.
This is the exact same way they treat regulation - if it's cheapter to break the law and pay some puny court-ordered fine here and there, so be it.
Arresting a murderer doesn't bring dead victims back to life. Does this reduce the usefulness of the police initiative to arrest murderers?
(Your analogy is flawed in general. The same applies to "bank robbers or muggers" as you mentioned: Once a crime has been committed, the damage has been done; and if no damage is done, I'd have trouble calling it a "crime".)
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
Better yet, frame somebody for writing the virus and take the $5 million yourself. That's what I'd do (if I was a jerk).
True story.
You should also mention that the patch fucked SMP machines and possibly (depends how lucky you are) any NT machine with a partition over 7.8GB. When testing reveals that the patch is borked you do NOT install it.
Don't forget to also mention that when a manufacturer waffles back and forth about wether or not to continue support on a platform (NT) that platform should be dropped from production. All my Windows 2000 boxes are SMP I have partitions MUCH greater than 7.8 GB and the patch I installed 3 weeks ago works great.