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CA Warns Of Massive Botnet Attack
m4dm4n wrote to mention a story running on The Register which describes a coordinated malware attack designed to establish a massive botnet. From the article: "The attack involves three different Trojans - Glieder, Fantibag and Mitglieder - in a co-ordinated assault designed to establish a huge botnet under the control of hackers. Computer Associates reckons that access to the compromised PCs is for sale on a black market, at prices as low as five cents per PC."
How long can this continue for?
Cops and robbers, all the time.
And in the meantime, technology gets more sophisticated. Progress eitherway.
1. Get every compromised PCs to join the same botnet.
2. White-hat hack into the botnet.
3. Tell all compromised PCs to wipe their hard drives.
4. No more compromised PCs! Well... not for a while anyway!
... Bringing us this information.
0 .asp), someone needs to be held accountable, or no-one will fix their behavior.
Bah. Big Deal!
If you run Windows, you PC will be owned at some point. (Yes, yes, I know some of you out there are perfect, and haver *never* messed up *anything* security wise) This happens to me, this happens to less computer literate people, and this happens to large organizations with IT staffs, like the U of Chicago and Allstate.
The solution is the same as always. Switch OSs.
The hotfix is the same as always. Backup data, use your restore disk. Rinse, lather, repeat.
I don't understand why zombie networks are news. The only way that they should be news is when they are used to DDOS major targets. Then, someone should be held accountable. Software manufacturers? Zombie PC owners? ISPs?
I'm not sure. But just like the guy with the TV that summoned the coast guard, (http://www.syncmag.com/article2/0,1759,1781135,0
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Moving to a new platform/OS without knowing all the ins and outs, could be just as dangerous as staying with Windows.
I remember my early days with Linux, back when I used to futz around and actually made my machines less secure, before I learned a great deal more about the OS and its features.
I am not saying that switching is bad, I am just saying that it is important to know what you are switching to before making the switch.
Nobody should get caught with their firewall down holding their LAN cable in their hand...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Most, if not all, ISPs need to lock down the end user's access to ports. Give them the basics ( outgoing 80, 110 and 143 ), but lock everything else down. In this case, I'd say everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Then, when someone calls in, you simply open the port they request.
This is more work for ISP support staff, but it would dramatically reduce network traffic; I bet it'd be an even flush as far as overall cost.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
End users just *don't care*. This is why there are botnets. Because, although their owned boxen are f-ing with the rest of the internet, it doesn't affect them - a selfish luser attitude, why should they bother virus/trojan scanning their boxen?
I wish ISPs (victims and hosting) would hold the lusers responsible for this - I think criminal negligence would be an appropriate charge. I for one look after my boxen and keep them patched (easier on the gentoo linux one).
Could this be considered racketeering somehow? Prosecution under RICO would be interesting.
Crazy Cheap Domain Hosting!
So basically you want me to give my ISP a list of ports I may require so they can white list them for my machine?
I'm sure my ISP would love it if I would say ask for ports 4662 to 4672 and 6881 to be unlocked.
I wonder what they'd think I was planning with those...and I'm sure the new knoppix iso would not be their theory.
Now after having edonkey and bittorent work,
I'll only need
5800 for VNC
21 & 22 anybody?
How about this idea, everyone has complete access privileges. The isp notices for common characteristics of a bot net and common malware. If such is found on the user the ISPs gateway forces all HTTP connects to a URL that has detailed instructions on how to install spybot seach & destroy, ad aware etc. Kind of like a hotel sends you to a registration page to buy internet access for the day when you connect.
The last step is for the user to either call or through some other mechanism notify the ISP that his machine is (for now) clean. The ISP removes the user from its black list and not only do we now have a patched windows box, but also one with basic defenses for the future. It be kind of like catching the criminal pc, putting it into jail until the software is installed and then releasing it as a rehabilitated system
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
OK, these things need to be taken seriously, but any press release needs to be taken with a grain (or bag) of salt. Spyware is the threat flavor of the day, and the specialized programs (ad-aware/spybot/spy sweeper/etc.) are better at managing it than traditional A/V is (at least right now). Bots are scary. Need to reformat and reinstall (our instructions to students at this major university). Viruses you can just clean (mostly, but mytob is throwing a wrench into that clean division). You figure which is scarier.
CA is the only product which detects ALL three of the mentioned viruses as of this posting. Which is not to say that they're making this up, but I'd be more willing to believe it if it came from the Secret Service or CERT.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Simple answer: the same way traditional organized crime moves money around.
It's not like these guys are all on their own, two kids who think they can make money. Often these groups are backed by, or associate with, traditional organized crime. That's what organized crime means... criminals helping criminals. You want to do something and get away with it? You pay your bit and get some help from others who already know how to do this.
Here's a good spot.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Step 1 - Determine where the crime is taking place - location of hacker, zombie or target of attack?
Step 2 - explain crime to local law enforcement so they know who to arrest and what evidence to collect.
Step 3 - explain it again to DA, judge and grand jury so they know what to charge them with, if there is even a law that can be applied.
Step 4 - watch local lawyer demolish case because no-one can figure out who was injured or assign a monetary value to loss
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
I am talking about a whole network.
You can't just wake up one day and decide that you are going to switch all your network servers and workstations to a new OS over the course of a few days. These things take time.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Organized crime.
In the old days, virus authors were really just trying to see how much of a nuisance they could be. Now, however, the ability to combine stolen resources spread over a large geographical area makes it incredibly easy to do some serious crime for relatively low risk.
Try looking at it from a criminal's perspective. The resources to mount a massive attack are easy to come by; thanks to most folk's unwillingness/fear to learn anything about computer security. The police are perceived as being just as clueless as the victims with the cracked computers. The investigation has to start with the machines that were cracked, which gives the crakers more time to cover their tracks.
And this says nothing about the complexities of getting a conviction with the morass of International laws involved.
It's evil as hell, but a bit ingenious.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
>>is there any hope that all the bad things that are happening with Windows (and Microsoft), that they will change their ways and actually anticipate some of these problems that are occurring?
As great and infallible as non-Windows OSs are, these same problems exist with Linux, Mac et al, just on a much smaller scale. Having some 95% of all desktops, Windows is the natural target here.
The problem isn't Windows or Microsoft. The problem is the **users**. They open email attachments without questioning the source. They don't run anti-virus software (or don't maintain the subscription). They don't employ firewalls. They don't update and patch their systems. They don't scan their systems for adware.
Yes, IE allows adware to be installed. Yes, Windows has the RPC hole. Yes, the windows kernel is, has been, and most likely will always be, insecure. But there are steps that a user can take to protect themselves. I have used Windows since Win286 and I have never been infected with a virus, never been compromised by a worm and never been the victim of spyware. I'm not an anti-MS person but I don't blindly use their software. I have more *nix servers than Windows servers but you could hardly consider me a fanatic.
True, I'm an IT professional and have a greater knowledge of PCs than 99% of users out there (just like the rest of us here), but it's not rocket science to keep yourself protected.
If the Penguin Dream of taking over the desktop ever comes true, you can bet that viruses, trojans, adware, etc will become an epidemic on Linux just as it is on Windows.
Remember: dumb users are platform-independent.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
Its way too late, not to mention disingenious to do this. First off, most users are using p2p, bitorrent, IM, etc which all require open ports for full functionality. Shutting them out or just approving Kazaa and a handful of apps is silly. The phone traffic from someone wanting to open a port would be ridiculous. Imagine how many times a PC wants to listen legitimately. Warcraft update? Call your ISP. IM file receive? Call your ISP. etc.
If you read the article, its not the ports thats the problem its users opening these infected emails. Youre still allowing the biggest hole - email. Zombie software can easily be written so it doesnt have to keep a port open, it can simply initiate the connection to a server someplace on its own.
ISPs eventually will have to police their network, as some are doing right now. So are universities. They'll do port scans and traffic analysis, then shut down the offenders. If these people can't keep their machines clean then the ISP can kick these customers as I'm sure it costs more to keep them than to lose them. After that, lots of people will suddenly renew their AV subscriptions, learn how to patch, etc.
Not to mention better server side email attachment scanning; users shouldnt be getting this stuff to begin with. Or if the big players decided to just block all executable attachments. Sure, everyting will be zipped, but that'll discourage "the double click two-step."