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Is the Botnet Battle Already Lost?
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers are finding it practically futile to keep up with evolving botnet attacks. 'We've known about [the threat from] botnets for a few years, but we're only now figuring out how they really work, and I'm afraid we might be two to three years behind in terms of response mechanisms,' said Marcus Sachs, a deputy director in the Computer Science Laboratory of SRI International, in Arlington, Va. There is a general feeling of hopelessness as botnet hunters discover that, after years of mitigating command and controls, the effort has largely gone to waste. 'We've managed to hold back the tide, but, for the most part, it's been useless,' said Gadi Evron, a security evangelist at Beyond Security, in Netanya, Israel, and a leader in the botnet-hunting community. 'When we disable a command-and-control server, the botnet is immediately re-created on another host. We're not hurting them anymore.' There is an interesting image gallery of a botnet in action as discovered by security researcher Sunbelt Software."
check if there is a "start" icon in your left lower corner of the screen. if so - yes, chances are you have caught a virus, and your computer is taken over and controled by the dark forces.
Firewalls are useful for monitoring traffic. The best way to detect a zombie computer is to look at the traffic coming in and out, checking for anomalies (such as excessive traffic to places nobody would be going to). Security Now is a great podcast that deals with security issues and locking down your systems. Episodes 3, 8, and 4 are particularly relevant. It can get technical at times but all-in-all it's a great explanation of how things work and what can be done to secure them.
You have no idea how depressing it is that I can't decide if the above comment should be modded flamebait, funny, informative or insightful.
What's needed is for someone like NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer to charge Microsoft with reckless endangerment for knowingly, willfully, and negligently distributing and continuing to distribute systems vulnerable to such attacks.
Meanwhile, we may need some brutal firewalls:
We're probably going to see some companies going to a locked down firewall like that.
Modern botnets clients are pretty adaptable; they will download patches, modifying themselves to beat disinfectors. With care, and unless the net manager has taken extreme measures to prevent it, one can induce the clients to remove or disable themselves, rather than just trying to kill the control channel. Should that fail, one should be able to determine what fallback channels the botnet clients use and disable those before killing the current command channel.
What we need is a large number of ISPs to get together and say, "We trust each other to deal with botnets." Then, with a single command, any trusted ISP within the network could instantly send a command to another ISP to shutdown a site or server that is running a botnet. All of these actions would be logged and would be reviewed to make sure that it is only being used against botnets; any sort of abuse (like using it to shut down protest sites or copyright violation sites) would result in an instant revocation of privileges. This system would be much better than what we currently have: trying to call the other ISP, trying to get them to listen to you, trying to get them to trust you ... it can take days, if ever, to shut down a botnet on another network.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Why not just physically unplug your computer from the network?
I am no expert in this area, but a thought occurs.
Why isn't it possible to simply identify the exploit being used to spread a particular botnet, and write software that uses the same exploit to travel throughout the net before activating (perhaps at some specific time) to both wipe out the botnet software and seal off the exploit?
It seems that as soon as you have the original botnet software, re-engineering it for this purpose would be relatively trivial. Plus there would be the immense satisfaction of fighting fire with fire. The software could even remove itself as its final act, saying "I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do" (although someone else might have to press the button to lower it into molten metal - "I cannot self-terminate").
The only reason I can think that this wouldn't work is that the 'antidote' software would be breaching computer security all over the place - basically doing the precise thing we are trying to stop. However, surely some sort of 'good samaritan' clause could be worked into the law - or the government could adopt responsibility for this process, or at least for pushing the button that sets each counter-botnet loose in the wild.
Of course this may already be the approach taken - I don't know much about the field, as I say.
Read Pynchon.
Useful in theory but how much time does it actually take to monitor this. There is generally so much ARP and other traffic going on that I've found it's extremely difficult in practice to actually discover such a trend. iptraf and some other tools ease the burden by allowing device and port specific analysis but still you really have to pay attention on a real-time basis or do a lot of data-mining. Who's going to spend this time on home network much less a general business environment where system administrators are already overstreached and security administrators are still the CFO's favorite line item veto?
Basically this is a problem with people owning computers who don't know how to maintain them properly
The cry of "I know, let's invent a computer that is smart enough to maintain itself!" was heard in the boardroom, and thus SkyNet was born - with the dual mission of perfecting itself and eradicating the useless humans that weren't even able to maintain it!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The so-called botnet battle is no different than the war on spam or the anti-virus front, or any of the others.
It's not a failure of technology. It's BAD PEOPLE, exploiting BAD SOFTWARE, who aren't being dealt with because of BAD EXECUTION of BAD LAWS. Fix the software, the law, and the enforcement of the law (esp. jurisdiction), and you'll neutralise 95+% of the bad people.
This crap is criminal. Crimes like this are sheltered by discussions about philosophy, politics, jurisdiction, and technology. If people would stop discussing and arguing, and start working together on the problem, it could be eliminated in under 24 months.
But convincing people to work together is impossible, so we might as well get used to it.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The simple problem with the fight against botnets is that it's asymmetric, and not in our favor. The bots are in a place that is particularly difficult for someone attempting to dismantle the network to reach, the property of someone else. It's not the technical problems that make a botnet so difficult to dismantle, but the legal ones.
The botnet creators don't give a damn, their objective involves breaking the law (where there is one) in order to hijack someones computer. Someone attempting to destroy the botnet is likely to be atempting to operate within the law, which requires notifying and enlisting the support of the owners of the compromise machines, many of which:
a) are difficult or impossible to contact
b) don't speak your language
c) don't understand anything about the problem
d) don't care
Any single instance of a botnet may have weaknesses that permit its demise without running into potential legal problems (such as a poorly-secured disable command), however botnets as a concept have no real theoretical weakness given the appropriate cryptography and care of construction. Decentralised, failure resistant networks of cooperating nodes is a well researched area and at the level botnets operate, barely constitute a challenge to anyone with the necessary knowledge of protocols, cryptography and programming.
They're here to stay, there is no practical non-desperate legal changes or technical tricks which will kill the concept entirely. Even if the general level of internet security increased 10-fold, there'd still be more than enough vulnerable computers to support botnet operators, and lets face it, that level of security change is not going to happen. Even if the general OS level improves, old and embedded (non-patchable) devices are still plentiful, and there will be more no-patch applicance like systems in the future which will continue to be exploited.
As a systems administrator or someone otherwise concerned with the impact, the rules are simple. Stay patched, Stay vigilant. If a large botnet decides to get you, hope your ISP subscribes to something like tipping-point that will give them a head start on deflecting the inbound traffic. That's about it.
You can't win a fight.
What's needed is for someone like NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer to charge Microsoft with reckless endangerment for knowingly, willfully, and negligently distributing and continuing to distribute systems vulnerable to such attacks.
Sue the IRC networks first; that's what makes it dumb shit easy for these guys to set up their botnets.
I had a machine hacked by a german movie filesharing group, and they incldued a bot which logged into their channel on Rizon. Like a good little admin, I logged into rizon, checked out the channel. It had several thousand users, a whole slew of fserves...and ZERO conversation. None.
I went to #help and reported the botnet attack and the response was: "hey, you want us to shut down one of the most popular channels here because of a evidenceless accusation that you were hacked by them and used as one of their fserves? LOL ZOMG GET SECURITY AHAHAHAHAHA LUSER P0WNZORED" etc. etc.
It is patently obvious that the Rizon admins are FULLY aware that they have dozens, if not hundreds, of illegal filesharing groups that are using botnets to set up fserves, attack other systems for more bots, etc. They're doing jack shit about it (and in fact, they're making it easier- they now support SSL connections) and I think it's time someone sued them to hell and back. It's time IRC operators were taught that you can't knowingly support criminal activity, and that if users report hackings- they need to look into said reports and act on them. I also think it's time IRC traffic was considered "highly suspicous" and monitored by ISPs for fserve commands and such; fserves have no real legitimate purpose today, except illegal filesharing.
PS: Next time you download a movie or program, bittorrent or IRC DCC....realize that it was distributed, most likely, by a group that hacked unix systems. Those systems were owned and administered by people just like you, and that person is going to have to deal with the damage and headaches. Just like you will, some day.
Please help metamoderate.
Set up a bridge without an IP address and install Snort on it. On FreeBSD or OpenBSD, this procedure is a snap. Your mileage may vary, query Google for assistance.
Snort identifies traffic by signatures, so instead of you eyeballing suspicious patterns, it can tell you if certain phrases are used, certain protocols, or what-have-you. Writing your own signatures are a piece of cake and the process is well-documented.
The bridge sits at the mouth of your network (behind your firewall) and can be used to identify what is getting past the firewall.
For the crafty -- use Snort2pf to automatically block inappropriate traffic. I used this to discourage eDonkey usage on school system's computer network and it worked like a dream.
However, maintaining my WinXP machines consists of checking the radio button labelled "Automatic (Recommended)" in the Automatic Updates dialog. It's not difficult, it's not expensive and it's not time-consuming.
A serious question, then: what do you think makes your outcome different from the outcome experienced by the people who are getting their machines owned? I don't know the answer, because I don't run Windows, but I could speculate:
Is it because they intentionally download stuff that infects their machine with spyware? If so, then maybe security is too difficult for them, because they aren't technologically sophisticated enough to realize that this is a bad idea, and maybe MS is helping to make it too difficult for them, by creating a culture where it's normal for every user to run with unlimited privileges.
Another possibility is that they aren't sophisticated to realize that the simple, commonsense measures you've taken (a router/firewall, doing updates) would be more sensible than measures such as buying anti-virus software, or taking their computer to Circuit City to get it fixed when it "gets slow."
I think the real problem is that a lot of people own more computer than they need. All they really need is a word processor, e-mail, and a web browser. They really don't need a general-purpose computer at all, and don't have the skills needed to maintain one. They might be better off with an internet appliance, or a thin client. The problem is that they don't understand how much they don't understand. It's like the people who have to own a Harley Davidson because it's cool, even though it's an utterly impractical motorcycle for what they want to do.
Find free books.
This isn't a battle for/against botnets. They're just the symptoms. What this really means is that the battle to have secure home PCs is lost. I won't even get into the Windos vs. Real OS discussion. The point is deeper still: Our homes are safe from burglars because those with the great skills and expert tools don't break into homes, they break into banks.
Not so on the Internet. Due to automation you can play the numbers game, and taking over 100,000 machines is feasable, less risky yet possibly just as profitable as breaking into one bank.
The best non-computer equivalent I can think of is the plague. Welcome to the crowded cities of the middle ages. Even if you, personally, are safe, you're still affected. Think about it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
No shit. Simply decompile the exec, get the password (shouldent be hard, unless it is encrypted, usually isnt), get the server ip/port/password/channel and possibly channel key, join the channel, login to the bots (.l password or what ever) and do
Now now. I am a Linux fan and such, but blaming Microsoft here is just stupid! You know why? Because usaully the thing is exploited hasent been patched yet. Every program has bugs, thats just how it is. Get over it. And how is it expensive to maintain windows machines properly? Windows Update is free, no?
While *nix botnets arent nearly as prevalent as Windows botnets, there are still ones out there...Dont think you are exempt.
Its very easy to get your identity stolen these days..Simply do some SQL injection on a pron site or what ever, then boom, you got yourself 5k credit cards. Were you dropped a child? On Windows, you cant delete a exec if its running..and most botnet execs fuck up things like the task manager and have backups of themselfs on your box. Easier said than done. How does your 'software' know what on the machine is a trojan? That wouldent be very good would it if your 'software' illegally compromised hosts trying to get rid of the trojans and accidently got some guys stuff that isnt infected? Also consider, when ever a new exploit is leaked in to the wild, all of the current botnet trojans are updated with it...There are widely diffrent...there is no plasuable way to just rid of all hosts comprimised with hole ____
ARP should not matter on the firewall.
Anyway, the easiest way is to monitor traffic by IP address, at the firewall, during times when no one should be using the computer with that address. If the machine is doing anything that goes through the firewall at 1 am, you should investigate.
On a home network? Probably no one.
On a business's network, that's completely different. If you leave your network open and are cracked and you lose you credit card numbers, that's between you and the bank. If a business leaves its network open and is cracked and loses YOUR credit card number, they can be sued.
The problem is that not many "network administrators" really know anything about their network or security. There are an almost infinite number of things you can that will take time and money but that will not actually increase the security of your systems.
Education is the beginning.
ISPs that tolerate insecure computers need to get blocked. Blocked from everything. It COULD happen, if Comcast and AT&T both decide they've had enough.
This would have the added benefit of stopping a lot of spam.
Yes, RBLs didn't get rid of spam. But they sure did (do) help. And a good part of the reason they don't work better is botnets. (remember Blue Security?
-Daniel
Ownyourphone.com. Custom ringtones, cheap and easy
Oh wait, this is slashdot. Nevermind.
Correct. The sweetheart in question HERE is probably an overclocked dual core Athlon chip that would handle that poem in a few milliseconds.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If you do not know how to check, I can assure you that your network is fully owned.
Got Code?
Slashdot needs a mod option: +1, Whatever.
What does it matter, really, if you've been rooted?
The sad fact is that no matter how often you're rooted, as the other post quite clearly pointed out, you're never going to get approval to remove the defective software that allowed it. If knowing creates willful negligence but not knowing doesn't, there's a certain advantage in not looking.
Just watch your netops keep uninstalling the more obvious malware and reimaging your boxes every few years and pretending everything is ok. Nod when they call the AV and the firewall edge box due diligence and don't watch those road warriors connect their notebooks to your localnet. You never get documents with executable content in email from outside your network anyway and if you did the virus scanner would stop it before delivery, wouldn't it?. Nobody on your network would click a suspicious link. These are not the rootkits you're looking for. Repeat after me: "I am so shocked! Gosh those hackers are clever. I hope they go to prison for a long time if they're ever caught using their completely anonymous fault tolerant botnet."
Now go heal some sick people, and never get admitted to your hospital under your own name.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Sorry, but besides the fact that it's illegal and unethical, it would probably only make things worse anyway.
The Nachi worm that tried to fix Blaster worm infected PCs back in 2003. Unfortunately, the "cure" was worse than the disease.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Trying to stop botnets by taking-down servers is like trying to stop rock-throwing by confiscating rocks.
An exercise in futility.
You stop rock-throwing by going after the throwers. If these propeller-heads would stop playing with their toys long enough to spend fifteen minutes talking to the nearest cop they would realize this.
Ignore the silly botnets and invest the resources to find and punish their creators. Criminal behavior declines only when there is substantial risk of substantial punishment. Until that risk exists, you're just wasting everyone's time.
'Nuff said.
Regards;