20,000 Zombie PCs -- $3000

Saint Aardvark writes "From F-Secure blog comes these links to two USA Today articles on spamming. The first gives an example of how a grandmother ended up becoming a security expert after Comcast cut her connection for spamming. The second quotes spammers advertising networks of Zombie PCs for sale. The price? $3000 for 20,000 machines."

Comments

Whose fault?

[RollingThunder]

Heather Hall can trace the start of her online banking nightmare to the day she received what she thought was a legitimate e-mail request from Bank of America asking her to click a link to a bank Web page. The 27-year-old health services worker typed in her login, password and account number. ...
Bank of America agreed to reimburse the money stolen from Hall's account, but only after she badgered them. "They wanted me to believe it was my fault," says Hall.

Yes, it's her fault. She did something foolish.

Re:Whose fault?

[Renraku]

Scams are criminal acts. Thus, the money was removed from the bank due to a criminal act. A bank that loses money to a criminal act that refuses to reimburse its customers might well lose its status as a bank. They took from her, without her permission, money from her bank account. Which is stealing, fraud, etc, etc. Maybe it was her fault it got stolen, but the money was stolen, from the bank.

Re:Whose fault?

[stratjakt]

Maybe technically, but that's not how the law works (thankfully).

Or do you think every time you hand a credit/debit card to a cashier at K-mart, that gives them the right to start charging things to your account?

Hell, your account number and routing info is on a cheque. So everyone you write a cheque to gets unlimited access to your chequing account?

Thinking bigger, all I need is your SSN (easily obtained) to steal your identity and take out a few hundred thou in mortages.

And it's all your fault! You gave it to me when you came to work for me! Hahahaha.

If BoA allows any unauthorized person to remove money from my account, it is their fault.

It doesn't matter how they came across my PIN or account number.

Security Expert?

[rvw14]

Zombie victim Carty took matters into her own hands: She did research on how to clean up and protect her PC and diligently updates programs that scan her computer for various types of malicious code. Her PC now runs clean. "I had no clue at Christmas that I would become a security expert," she says.

It is quite sad that a person who just updates their computer and runs a virus scanner is now considered a "security expert."

Pay the $3k and clean house

[jamezilla]

This sounds like a good deal for the authorities. For 3 grand you get:

1. a list of machines that need to be cleaned up
2. a bank account or other information that can be used to track down the spammers/crackers

I guarantee $3k is cheaper than what it would actually cost tax payers if the authorities did their job with normal investigative work.

Re:Pay the $3k and clean house

[Anonymous Coward]

In an economics class I took, we were presented with a case where a bunch of missionaries got together for a project where they would collect alot of money, then go to a third world nation and buy some underage prostitutes, then bring them to the states to give them help, treatment, and a caring foster home to be raised up in.

It all sounds good on paper until you look at the fact that the people that kidnapped the kids got paid, so they have incentive to repeat the process. The argument was that the better (albeit longer and harder) fight was to make child prostitution not profitable or try to arrest or contain the kidnappers somehow.

Somehow I think the the spammers would figure out a way to get their money, cover their tracks, and sneak away. I don't think they really care what happens to the 20k zombies. They got their money, weather the zombieNet was used to clean house or actually send spam.

Re:So, for 3 Grand...

[MightyPez]

And I had no clue that in a time when a majority of middle aged and elderly people using PC's with just enough knowledge to turn them on, an elitist asshole could belittle someone who took time out of their life to learn nuances of security on the internet.

Re:So, for 3 Grand...

[abirdman]

But don't you see? It doesn't require a "security expert" to keep a Windows machine clean and virus-free. All it requires is a little software and a clue. People don't purposely install software that will turn their computers into zombies. They do it because they don't understand that opening an email with that "free screensaver" or "hot picture" will infect their machine (and they're right, it shouldn't be that way!). They don't realize that random popups offering Viagra aren't built into the OS and normal, and that they're different from the random popups that Microsoft Update sends. I know and have observed several people (not stupid!) who just routinely close any popup window, don't read any of them, and assume everything is normal.

If grandma figures that all out, and especially if she tells all her friends, then I have no problem with her calling herself an expert. Don't worry, no prospective employer is going to hire her over someone who knows something, unless maybe she's hired to train end-users in the humdrum tasks of everyday workstation security. Imagine, if you will, a Beowulf Cluster of "grannies-who-get-it" showing everyone they know the nuts and bolts of how not to infect their computers! How to manage Microsoft update, how to d/l, install and run SpyBot S&D, a virus scanner, a spam filter program like POPFile, and maybe even a more secure browser (read, one that doesn't automatically install and run whatever random piece of code it finds on the net). They would do more for overall Internet security than a batallion of security experts preaching arcane router strategies to tired and jaded Network Admins. There would still be occasional viruses, worms, and exploits, but those could be left to the experts. I see no reason to be cynical about this.

/END OF RANT