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Return of the Web Mob
Parore writes "eWeek is running a story about the return of the web mob, highlighting all the similiarities between the online attacks and the real-world mafia. From the article: "Black hat hackers have set up e-commerce sites offering private exploits capable of evading anti-virus scanners. An e-mail advertisement intercepted by researchers contained an offer to infect computers for use in botnets at $25 per 10,000 hijacked PCs. Skilled hackers in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America are selling zero-day exploits on Internet forums where moderators even test the validity of the code against anti-virus software."
I think the most mafiaesque thing I've seen on the old HTTP lately would be the DDoS and demand for ransom money on milliondollarhomepage.com Here's an article on it, the blog on the site itself also details how it went down. http://www.techshout.com/internet/2006/19/ransom-s eeking-hackers-attack-uk-students-million-dollar-w eb-site/
My name is coaxeus, and I approve this message. In fact, I think it is awesome.
This is exactly why any and all security information should be released to the public immediately.
Public release will serve the following purposes:
1. To inform the consumer of a problem/vulnerability so that action can be taken sooner.
2. To kick the vendor in the ass and make him move on the issue.
3. To prevent underground organizations from creating secret exploits that might otherwise go unnoticed or unidentified.
3a. To prevent commercial gain by exploiting the knowledge of such secret/unknown security problems.
You see the attacks from such countries because it is damn convenient to proxy the traffic through those countries. Every good cracker in The US or Europe does that to have a layer of security between himself and the authorities.
It was tangible, they could deal with it :)
They are all tangible at some point. Someone uses a stolen credit card number to buy a widget. Sure, it takes 20 steps of "cyber crime" until the actual fraud is committed, but the crimes always come back to the physical. The problem is that the physical is too late to stop, in most cases.
I called the FBI on two occassions and told them of people that were trying to defraud me. They asked, "did they already get any money from you?" when I told them I wasn't that stupid, they said they weren't intersted in the solicited fraud. They wouldn't investigate without actual loss, they are too busy to prevent crime or catch people that probably did successfully defraud others. They'd rather have the open case they can ignore when the next person doesn't know what a 419 is...
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