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Zombie Networks On The Rise
A reader writes "
According to Symantec via the BBC online, Zombie PC nets are growing very fast. Of course, it should also note that Symantec may want those numbers to be as scary as possible. " ITMJ is part of OSTG, like Slashdot. There's also a NY Times story on the article as well.
...numbers to be scary. And, they want the bad news to come from them. Otherwise, people would wake up and start using products like Panda or Kaspersky.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
...to get people to realize that the internet is not a nice place? I applaud Microsoft's attempt to make their OS more secure, even if it isn't as comprehensive as it should be. As illegal as it is, I would love to see a zombie virus spread that locks down peoples computers, cleans them and installs a firewall. I certainly wouldn't put my head on the block for that one, but I'd love to see it happen. Hopefully it'd cut down on my spam.
You too can learn to link to the NYT without registering.
c ure.html?ex=1253419200&en=651229ed583b13bc&ei=5090 &partner=rssuserland
Here the reg free link...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/technology/20se
This is another case where NAT should be used to protect our more feeble computer-using companions. Click here for my previous comment on the subject.
NAT really would stop all these type of things from happening by just purchasing a $50 dollar router for our friends and family. We're never going to be able to teach them, so just give in and recommend a hardware based solution they don't have to manage.
Chris
Symantec's industry survives because of news article that promote security threats.
-------
artlu.net
The new Hacker Horror film from Miramax!
... "My tcpdump is showing huge numbers of zombie packets, and they all want more brains."
... "When's the last time you shaved?"
... "Um, moo ha ha ..."
With Christian Slater as the disenfranchised White Hat Hacker
Winona Ryder as the potenial but largely unreachable love interest
Donald Sutherland as the evil mastermind behind the Zombie Networks
Written, directed, produced, and music composed on the Casio by Roland Emmerich.
ZOMBIE NETWORKS. This film is not yet rated.
MORE PACKETS!
Opening everywhere February 30th 2005.
As a guy who gets to clean up these pieces of junk daily, the number of trojans around is growing. Earlier it was maybe one a week. Two or three if there was a major outbreak. Now its 1-2 a day. Good business as clueless lusers pay OK amounts for cleanup as long as they dont have to do the dreaded reinstall that their compaq/hp/dell support line offered as a solution.
Whats annoying is that some of these buggers can really mess up the system. Simple 'pop in cd / go to free online web scanner and clean up' no longer works in some cases... Symantec should concentrate more on making their crappy AV software work better and resist disabling by virii better and stop issuing more sensationalist press releases.
Its way too common to get a virus-filled computer with norton internet security installed. Some bug had just killed the whole AV software, leaving an empty 'shell' up that keeps telling the user everything is fine. They usually wake up when their ISP cuts their line and tells them to clean up and call back when their system is secured.
I mean, for example - on IRC people used to make spambots and run them off of their shells or even their own PCs. Now its zombified machines that do the spamming. There was (is?) a huge problem on Undernet not so long, for instance where miriads of hosts were used to promote a certain website under false pretenses, fooling people into accepting a DCC send request or even downloading a file of the said website and infecting their machine to have more spam bots.
Seriously, most P2P protocols need to be improved in detecting that there is no one home, or someone is going to figure out how to inject IP addresses into their networks for DDoS attacks.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
For example, spamwarez.biz gets name services from ns1.zombie-dns.biz thru ns7.zombie-dns.biz. zombie-dns.biz nameservers are *also* running on a Zombie network, and setting DNS servers in the domain registrar's control panel. If you can shut down zombie-dns.biz at the registrar and deactivate, then the entire zombie network collapses.
Of course, most registrars don't give a damn about this, especially the Spam friendly ones, but I've successfully managed to shut down a small number of zombie networks by using various means.. not all of which might be considered ethical or even 100% legal.. but who cares?
Someone is sending spam using my email address as the return, and I'm getting hundreds of bounced emails.
The originating IP's are all different, and I am assuming these are all compromised systems. I'm not going to email every ISP to let them know, as I've found out that most ISP's do not contact their clients to inform them their systems are compromised. All I can do is contact the upstream providers for the web site being spamvertised, and hope that the hosting provider shuts them down.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Isn't there a law someplace about knowingly compromising someone's computer for use without their explicit consent? Sabotage, or stalking, or just plain theft?
Over the first six months, the number of monitored bot networks rose to more than 30,000, from fewer than 2,000.
This is like saying that there's an increase in monitoring car dealerships which steal cars to resell to car rental agencies. Can we repo the cars which are within US borders? Are _ALL_ of the botnet owners somehow in other countries?
With a significant portion of internet traffic running through Virginia shouldn't it be a pretty basic task to monitor and shut these down? I acknowledge that it would take time, and manpower, and some forensic skill but clearly it can't be impossible.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
...when my PC started its habit of flashing the word "BRAAAIIINS" every few minutes.
Why bad-mouth Symantec for pointing out the reality of the situation? Would you be happier if it were CERT or someone else delivering the bad news?
Symantec and its tools are part of the solution. Not exclusively the solution, or the only solution, but a part of it. And, by letting people know that problems are out there, they're performing a service that is necessary; you didn't think someone like Microsoft was going to be issuing press releases to the media that put its products in a negative light, did you?
It's not even as if the other AV vendors that you mention are any different to Symantec: both Panda and Kaspersky are closed-source commercial products and both companies have prevalent virus activity and warning indicators on the homepages of their respective websites. And I bet they both send out press releases to the media highlighting large-scale infestations and particularly dangerous threats, so why crucify Symantec for being the company whose press release the BBC chose to focus on?
Bottom line: why blame the messenger if the message is accurate?
Just what's Symantec done here to warrant you being any more ticked off at them than anyone else? Do you have a legitimate reason for targetting them or are you just trolling?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
"The key challenge for Microsoft is not XP users," said Mr Beighton, "it's the Windows 98 and 95 machines."
Any bets that we'll still this line 5 or 10 years down the road? The "ain't broke, don't fix" mentality is above and beyond some individuals' concept of needing to update.
"Update? Why do'z I need to do'z dat? My solitare runz just fine ma!"
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
Looking at the security logs on my Linux system (with a broadband connection), there is at least one hack attempt to log into my system using sshd (users such as root, cisco, syadmin, admin etc...) .
In the past week these have been from the India Institute of Technology, Florida International University, and various Korean servers. And that doesn't include the RPC DCOM exploits that come in all the time from other windows systems (about one every five minutes).
A sure bet your PC is indeed a zombie PC:
It continues to moan even when your not watching pron!
Life is Reality
Why do we HAVE to look at numbers? just kill all the PCs which have been turned "undead" and move onto the sequal already. Quoting numbers and writing down names is all fine and dandy but it's not preventing it.
Force people to install security updates or sell the PCs with them all pre installed and make windows update automaticly run once a month.
Install some open source virus scanners and such the same way. Make sure it is CLEARLY labeled that the PC will automaticly update all these files the first of each month by an update program. As and when possible (AKA soon aspossible).
Tell the people it will prevent viruses, make things faster and generally help things. Is it really that difficult?
I like muppets.
It'd continue to run even after it died! But I hope it'd run as fast as those zombies in 28 Days Later and not slow like in Night of the Living Dead.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
To quote the fine article:
Don't think so. There are *far* fewer exploitable services running on Windows 95 and Windows 98, as compared to Windows 2000 and XP. I'd *much* rather use Windows 98 online than Windows 2000 or XP, in security terms. Most of the recent worms use exploits in services that never existed prior to Windows 2000 ...
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
I don't know about that. I find it ironic that even on P2P networks people are so infected that their files aren't even usable. The irony is that you can download functioning copies from the same networks that they are participating in or at least can get a free version of some decent virus protection, yet they don't. So I think even if not one more single computer virus was made starting tomorrow it would take forever for them to disappear.
Not trying to flame here but some of the worst havens I have seen are samba shares because people don't put antivirus on *nix servers. It is like pulling teeth trying to tell those admins that it DOES affect them. If their users are running windows, get a virus that does keylogging, and they log in again...guess what...it did affect the *nix server.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
...you're not aware of what a zombie network, or zombie is then:
"A zombie computer is a computer attached to the Internet that has a hidden software program, a "backdoor". This backdoor allows the computer to be remote-controlled by others.
A Zombie Computer army can then be used for the purpose of Denial of Service attacks (DDoS).
A singe Zombie Computer can send unsolicited e-mails ( spamming).
Backdoors are often installed with spammed trojans or e-mail worms."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_computer
A Botnet [Zombie Network] is a collection hosts (bots) under a common command and control infrastructure. Often the command and control is an IRC server or a specific channel on a public IRC network. A bot typically has an agent client such as an IRC client and programs that are activated through the command and control infrastructure. Generally botnets are made up of compromised systems with scan, exploit and attack tools all used for nefarious purposes including denial of service attacks or sending of spam. Miscreants running these rogue botnets do so for reasons varying from fun to profit, with botnets often at war with each other. Popular botnet malware in 2004 include agobot, phatbot, rbot, rxbot and sdbot.
Spam attacks originating from a Botnet can be identified by passive os fingerprinting, a technique first introduced in OpenBSD in the venerable pf packet filter. Newer firewall equipment can be configured to take action when a botnet is attacking by using information obtained from passive os fingerprinting."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet
Minimum standards for connecting to the network would be preferable. Obselete versions of Windows (those not gaining security fixes) should be barred.
Perhaps less experienced users would benefit from firewalling at the ISPs network too. I believe all the ISPs that appeal to inexperienced users (AOL) should provide this as standard.
I have the latest anti-virus software which 100% prevents my computer from being targeted by an sort of vi[NO CARRIER] ... brainzzz ... must have brainzzzz ...
I've been troubleshooting slow network connections at two of our remote offices, and I found something very interesting. Both of the offices are connected to us via a Cisco VPN. Each of the offices is connected to the internet via a PIX firewall and cable modem. During the past year I've seen the performance of these links deteriorate to worse than ISDN speed performance - here's why:
It seems these cable modem networks are flooded with zombie machines constantly scanning networks for vulnerable hosts to infect. Cisco's floodguard freaks out and thinks that its internet connection is being ddos attacked and starts discarding packets it thinks are malicious.
Well, it seems that Cisco's algorithm for determining malicious packets isn't perfect, so it throws out the baby with the bath water....resulting in a REALLY slow connection.
After disabling floodguard the links were back up to 3 Mbps and 10 Mbps.
So if your networks are zombie free, and you can't figure out why your internet connection sucks and you are running floodguard, try disabling it and running some tests.
-ted
I have seen are samba shares because people don't put antivirus on *nix servers.
Any suggestions for a home user with Samba on Linux and a very small budget.
As a simple but not as safe method. I use the W32 client antivirus software to scan the network shares. Better then nothing.
On that note, the free version AntiVir for W32 does NOT scan anything on network drives at all. A good free solution for home users without network shares though.
This zombie problem is worse than we thought! Check out the Zombie Infection Simulation!
- Bruzer
"Tempt not a desperate man" - Willy S.
I'll agree that running AntiVirus on all systems is a good practice, but the Samba share and the UNIX system aren't really to blame for obtaining the virus in the first place. The situation your describing looks like
MS Win32 system gets virus
MS Win32 system saves virus to network share
Other MS Win32 systems access saved virus file
MS Win32 systems compromised
Your right that a file server should run AntiVirus, but the real problem is allowing the virus onto your network in the first place.
get a virus that does keylogging, and they log in again...guess what...it did affect the *nix server.
True that the *nix server could be affected, but it's really due to a compromise on the MS Win32 system.
"True that the *nix server could be affected, but it's really due to a compromise on the MS Win32 system."
Yup. But infected is infected.
The *nix box won't be affected by any of those viruses, but the machines it shares them with can be infected. And that infection can put a load on the network (particularly the viruses that do scanning).
It's easy to put anti-virus on the file server and just kill the infections there.
The member IRC Networks of IRCUnity have been systematically shutting down those channels as quickly as they are found. IRCUnity is the same group that disabled the Fizzer Worm last year.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
However they are very tenacious.
Hackers on Mars have accidentally opened ports allowing Hell to infect PCs with evil viruses and turn them into Zombies!
AntiVirus software isn't enough. Hand me my pistol, my shotgun, my BFG and my flashlight.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I am a sys admin for a hosting comapny, I cannot tell you guys how many spam zombies are out there, they are growing and the are scary, they will target a domain and spew out thousands of alpha numeric combinations hoping to land one delivery. We had so much trouble wiht one customer, he had to change his domain name, it is really bad... I am now starting to support the trend of ISP blocking port 25 all together, and to only allow email out via their mail servers (so they can make sure their users are no spam zombies). Spam sux :(
photoplankton
Let's look at the average home PC. Most owners treat it like any other appliance, like a toaster or a refridgerator. They never consider the security implications. They see these bright shiny advertisements on TV for hyper-speed DSL or cable downloads and they hook right into the Internet, without any security forethought.
It's like walking out onto the Dan Ryan expressway blindfolded during the morning rush hour. Your survival rate is measured in seconds.
Of course, in a perfect world, this would not be a problem, because the good people would exercise netiquitte and leave the security-ignoramauses along. But unfortunately, there are bad people out there-- ones that write viruses; send spam; and use other peoples machines to wreak some imagined vengence against some site. What's a mother to do?
OK, here is what I want on my machine-- developers, wake up!
1) I want a zombie detector running at all times. I want it to tell me if someone is trying to get into my machine from the outside (regardless of port). I want it to tell me if some process on my machine is trying to reach a remote machine on the Internet (regardless of port). I want this to have an icon in my startup tray that will check for updates every x minutes, and blink if there are any. I want it to check for updates when I boot up anyway. And I want it to have the option to remove the zombie it finds.
Yes, I know this looks a lot like some commercial products (like from Symantec) but I want it free. And hacker-proof.
Does anyone out there have a zombie detector??
2) I want a utility that will check my incoming email, and check for a valid senders IP/hostname. If it fails, dump the email into the spam folder. This is in addition to any Baysian filters and other spam traps that almost work.
3) I really want an appliance computer. Not something where I need (a) a friendly neighborhood computer expert, or (b) a comp science degree (as if that helps), or (c) a hacker mentality to keep my machine vermin free and configurable. To you computer manufacturers / OS designers / application developers: Make it EASY for us, EVEN IF IT MAKES IT HARD ON YOU!! Apple, you are the closest right now.
When my wife feels comfortable on a computer, you have succeeded.
Off my soapbox.
It's the only 98 machine I use as all my other ones are Linux or XP. It's at my company's office running legacy DOS applications that don't run well under XP, much less Linux/BSD. I also use it for e-mail and web browsing. I've had zero trouble with viruses, worms, trojans, and all the other flavors of malware because I use a little common sense, don't use IE or OutLook, and do use the AVG virus scanner (which never goes off), Zone Alarm freebie firewall and Ad Aware.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
that have nothing to do with the implementing programming language.
Remember the URL path hacks, esp. on Macs? foobar:/local/path links combined with location.href redirecting javascript... no buffer overflows there.
Many of the old outlook flaws that propogated some huge viruses and worms were because of how shittily it handled MIME-types and what attachments should be activated in the preview pane...
Again.
Sometimes the biggest problems aren't the much maligned buffer overflows but by people figuring out using features of software in ways that it was not intended.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
ClamAV or F-Prot are both good virus scanners for Linux, which are free for home use (Or completely open in the case of ClamAV). Both will scan your samba shares, and can be automated in a number of ways. Both seem to be maintained and updated quite frequently.
This bugger was really tough to remove. I tried the adaware and Panda and any other "auto removal" tools that I could find. These efforts got me to the point where the homepage was no longer being affected
But through the process, I got introduced to "HijackThis" and "FindNFix" which is (or was at the time) more of an analysis tool than a repair tool. Using these tools, I was able to see that my efforts were only partially successful. Even though my homepage was no longer changing, I continued to have a persistent BHO that I could not get rid of. Or rather, once removed, it would re-appear on each reboot, usually with a different name.
I came to the realization that I was infected by a dormant bot. And that any time I started my browser, the bot would "phone home" and receiving no instructions, would do nothing. I knew that the day was coming when this bot would be instructed to do something besides nothing, and my computer would be enlisted as a soldier in a "drone army".
Because the "phone home" occurs as an http request via port 80, it occurs almost undetectably (I could see it happening via tcpdump on my firewall) and it is essentially impossible to block, unless you block web browsing to your user population.
This is the new evil..
I don't know that we have seen these drone armies put to use yet. The possibilities are frightening.
I see many posts, by the uninformed, that say.. Patch em up. Scan em thouroughly and run your adaware. You'll be safe then. Don't be misled. This is infection is more stealthy than that.
In the end, it took me several hours to learn how to remove this infection. I used the tools listed above, and some procedures I found documented in the news groups. I had to disable recovery, boot into safe mode, move (rename) the file three times and only then did my diagnostics come up clean.
I don't want to needlessly frighten anyone, but this one really scares the bejeesus out of me.
I remember Trinoo back in late 1998, also CDC's BackOrifice. It was very clear back then that zombies were going to be a problem. The unfortunate truth is that security companies, ISPs, and the like only focus on issues once they reach critical mass, so they can justify expenditure. By the time meetings have been had, strategy has been discussed, marketing has been massaged, etc, the problem has grown into an epidemic.
The ISPs need to pick up the ball here, put up some IDS capable proxies in and start shutting down the shit they're spewing into the internet. Otherwise the problem is never going to go away if you expect grandma to buy something to solve a problem she doesn't understand.