Bot Infestations Reach Nearly 1.2M

mengel writes "According to the folks at SecurityFocus the number of bot-infested systems has surged to nearly 1.2 million. This after a big drop in December when lots of people replaced/upgraded systems. Time to upgrade your spam filtering software, the onslaught is coming."

Comments

Tweaking liability laws

[Harmonious Botch]

These bots could be greatly limited with proper tweaking of liability laws. Under current laws, if I leave a pool or a car unsecured and somebody else gets injured or killed, I can be found totally or partially liable. But if I leave my computer unsecured and someone else uses it to cause harm to third parties, I'm in the clear.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[Watson Ladd]

It would be hard to determine what constitutes appropriate security. And how are you supposed to know about a zero-day or a subtle misconfiguration? A pool is easy to secure. A car is easy to secure: Both have small threat models and physical protection is all you need. A computer is much harder to secure.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[gregleimbeck]

If my unsecured computer causes somebody to get injured or killed, I will take responsibility. OTOH, if my car starts spreading malware and spamming, you're SOL.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[Anonymous Coward]

True but life is hard. This is the solution to this "problem", just as having a 1 cent cost per an email sent is the solution to the spam "problem".

ISPs should immediately pull the plug too on infested machines to limit damages.

There's no reason to let innocent bystanders to suffer from the criminal neglect of some.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[NeverVotedBush]

But if I leave my computer unsecured and someone else uses it to cause harm to third parties, I'm in the clear.

You would think the legal case could also be made to hold Microsoft liable for stolen personal information, illegal charges to credit cards, raided bank accounts, etc., when known but unpatched (i.e. no patch available) exploits to their software allow people's computers to be compromised.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[mrbluze]

if I leave my computer unsecured and someone else uses it to cause harm to third parties, I'm in the clear

But if you have a car which injures people because the manufacturer put in lousy breaks, lousy locks, lousy steering etc, then the car manufacturer is in trouble, right?

Whilst I agree with you, the liability laws need changing, "reasonable" attempts at securing a Windows PC (eg: using antivirus software) have proven to be a waste of time, so the onus should be on the manufacturer.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[mrbcs]

I work for a small ISP and that's exactly what we do. You get two strikes. First is a warning to clean up your machine and put on antivirus software. Next time, we kick you off the network and terminate your account. Problem totally solved. We've had two people get the first warning. None kicked yet.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[freedom_india]

...and get sued for millions of dollars for hosting "Shakira"?? No thanks.
RIAA/MPAA do not have any idea of technology. They would rather sue you (unwitting hosed guy) rather than sick the Secret Service on bot writers.
Good luck trying to explain child porn to a jury by stating that your XP was compromised....

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[1u3hr]

These bots could be greatly limited with proper tweaking of liability laws.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of known spammers in the US. (See the ROKSO list, eg.) Barely a handful are ever prosecuted. One or two have been sentenced, trumpeted here as a victory against spammers, but really showing that being caught and punished for deliberate spamming is a very rare event. Considering that, what could a "negligent" spammer get?

ISPs can easily detect and cut off spam spewing robots. They have the right to do so in their TOS, but are just too complacent or perhaps concerned they'd have to deal with hundreds of clueless users complaining about it.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[Anonymous Coward]

so the onus should be on the manufacturer.

Ah, your sig [Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.] conflicts with your argument. :-)

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[penix1]

Although it gives you a "warm fuzzy feeling"(TM) that your company isn't contributing to the bot problem, too many kicks and you soon have no customers. All that you are doing is forcing that customer to go to an ISP that won't give them the boot. It does nothing to actually solve the problem.

An alternative would be instead of cutting them off completely, offer them an antivirus solution. Although I hate them, this is what companies like AOL and NetZero are doing.

B.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[Phroggy]

Good luck trying to explain child porn to a jury by stating that your XP was compromised.... You're forgetting, most of the members of the jury run Windows XP too.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[erroneus]

A better solution would be to simply restrict their outgoing port access rather than to kick them. If they are on dialup, you just set up a dialup pool just for that (set of) logins that does not allow port 25 to go out.

All over Japan, I have found, they are blocking outgoing port 25 and it's annoying as hell but I understand why they do it.

Re:Tweaking liability laws

[rbochan]

...too many kicks and you soon have no customers...

To be honest with you, I _would_ use that ISP versus one that doesn't dump the garbage traffic. I consider that a damn nice feature.

Hmmm....

[groovemaneuver]

This must be related somehow to Windows being the most secure operating system... :p

Re:Hmmm....

[glittalogik]

Damn those 1.2 million Linux users! Bloody hell, when will they learn?

Re:Hmmm....

[pallmall1]

This must be related somehow to Windows being the most secure operating system...

Yes, this is another KISS* from microsoft.

* Keep It Spamming Stupid!

All those bots must be coming from

[Steve--Balllmer]

all those Linux and OS X systems, since Symantec says Windows is the most secure operating system.

Forget the spam filters...

[ShaunC]

..It's more like "time to put an ad in the paper, an onslaught of new customers is coming!" I wish I still had time to do spyware removals and clean up infested computers. Easy money for those who have the time and are willing to make housecalls.

I, For One...

[NeverVotedBush]

Welcome our new botnet overlords...

Re:I, For One...

[miro f]

How long before these bots link up and become nodes in a larger network? At that point they store information, react to direct stimulus and transmit to the rest of the network. Each cell might be relatively simplistic, with no goals other than self-preservation, replication and transmission of data to the other nodes. Surely, there will be fitness rewards for a node that behaves in a certain way? With a billion of them, I wonder what potential would be for emergence?

translation: Imagine a beowolf cluster of those!

But my spam is way down from the Dec/Jan peak

[gvc]

Perhaps the big SEC bust actually had some effect. My personal harvest of spam has dropped recently from 1000/day to 500/day.

Re:Computer bots

[winkydink]

Not true. Most modern bots are designed to stay under the radar. A zombie PC is worth money and it makes sense to keep control of it as long as possible. So most newer malware uses system resources sparingly.

Battle is now greylisting versus IP address spread

[RonBurk]

IMO, the real battle here is caused by greylisting. Greylisting plus a honeypot database of fake email addresses is clearly the most effective, automatic, general-purpose anti-spam mechanism to come along. Spammers are starting to feel the pinch (even though lots of people are still struggling with old-fashioned "filtering" mechanisms, and are still easy and fun targets).

The spammers who are starting to take on greylisting are doing so by two main mechanisms: massive distribution across IP address space, and direct use of infected PC MTAs.

The IP address spread is fairly simple to understand. If you have 100,000 zombie PCs with 100,000 IP addresses, then clearly you can send 100,000 pieces of spam without ever using the same IP address twice. That makes the honeypot database of greylisting useless, since I rely on waiting to see a given IP address send email to a known "bogus" email address to correctly identify that IP address as a spammer (in the short term, at least).

The direct use of infected PC MTAs is more difficult. If the zombie PC can programmatically use the unspecting owner's own ISP MTA to send the spam, then it becomes very difficult to distinguish that spam from real mail send from a real person (just as botnet click fraud is very difficult for Google to do anything about without also discounting some "real" clicks).

To respond to the massive distributed IP address spammer, I think a drastic increase in bogus email addresses would help, so that they have to transmit to 10 or 100 times more addresses in order to hope to reach the same # of real people. It's easier for website owners to create more bogus email addresses than it is for the spammers to infect more PCs. You basically always "drop" mail sent to a bogus address so that the spammer is convinced it went through and is getting to a "real" person (and probably even sells that address to other spammers as "verified").

That would push the spammers squarely into focussing on using the infected owner's own ISP's MTA for transmission, giving those ISPs an ever-increasing workload of bogus mail to send. Sorry, but that's where this war is headed anyway: to the point where ISPs will start charging customers to disinfect their PCs once they've been identified as botnet spam transmitters.

I'm going to start slowly increasing my spamming of spammer address databases today (e.g., by injecting more hidden text email addresses onto websites). Note that this is not a "solution" to spam (so please don't post that cute little form :-). This is just an effort to push the problem where I think it's going to end up eventually anyway: on the backs of ISPs that have not yet come to view infected customer PCs as "their" problem yet.

"systems" euphemism

[allin]

The article speaks of "bot-infested systems". Call a spade a spade. These
are bot-infested PCs running MS Windows. They make life hell for the rest of
us.

Re:Battle is now greylisting versus IP address spr

[Anonymous Coward]

The IP address spread is fairly simple to understand. If you have 100,000 zombie PCs with 100,000 IP addresses, then clearly you can send 100,000 pieces of spam without ever using the same IP address twice. That makes the honeypot database of greylisting useless, since I rely on waiting to see a given IP address send email to a known "bogus" email address to correctly identify that IP address as a spammer (in the short term, at least).

That isn't greylisting at all (though it is useful against spam).

Greylisting is giving a "new" incoming SMTP connection a 400-series error message the first time they try to send email to you. A 400-series error means a temporary problem - please try again. When they try a second time they try to send email, you accept.

Since all legitimate email servers will retry when they get a 400-series error, a legitimate message will go through, at a cost of a time delay.

However, most spammers don't bother retrying (although some do), so you can block a lot of spam with greylisting, with very little bandwidth or CPU cost.

An easy fix

[davmoo]

In another reply I saw someone suggest ISPs sending automated snail mail notices to users who's machines have been owned.

I'll go one better. Cut the fucking thing off the net until the user fixes the problem.

I fail to see why it seems to hard to detect these things. When an ISP sees a machine go from sending out 4 or 5 emails a day to spitting out thousands of emails every hour, it should be obvious there's a problem.

Also, close the damn mail ports off. If a customer wants to host their own email server at home, fine...but make them call in and request that the port be opened. And make it clear that if their machine gets owned, they get cut off and fined before access will be reconnected.

And finally, spam has been a problem for years...how come the MTAs haven't been rewritten to not allow header forging, etc, in all that time? Isn't this supposed to be one of the big advantages of open source and open protocols?

Re:An easy fix

[metlin]

In another reply I saw someone suggest ISPs sending automated snail mail notices to users who's machines have been owned.

I'll go one better. Cut the fucking thing off the net until the user fixes the problem.

That's not really fair.

Most users are not technically sophisticated to do anything, even if they were told that their computers were affected.

Computers and the internet are far too prevalent today to simply cut somebody off because their boxes were compromised. If you must, blame the manufacturers for designing systems that can so easily be taken over by bots and viruses.

Most people don't really care, because to them the computer is just like the TV or the microwave - a tool that lets them do something. If the tool gets messed up and causes problems because of something, they can't be held responsible because face it, they have no clue whatsoever. If you are designing a system that you think even an idiot can use, then make sure that it is idiot-proof.

But companies want to sell $OS to your grandma, but do not want to take responsibility for what happens when things go to hell. If you are selling something to grandma, make it grandma-proof. She will open attachments, she will not have a clue about what's out there on the web -- if you are selling her a tool, make sure that it is protected against the mistakes she most likely will make.

Somehow, in the software industry, it is considered acceptable to call the users idiots and let go. Now here's the thing -- even some of the very smart people have trouble using computers simply because it is not their thing. Not everybody can be a computer geek, and nor should they expected to be.

If anything, the software manufacturers should be held responsible. Stop blaming the users already, please.

Re:An easy fix

[Phroggy]

I fail to see why it seems to hard to detect these things. When an ISP sees a machine go from sending out 4 or 5 emails a day to spitting out thousands of emails every hour, it should be obvious there's a problem.

Also, close the damn mail ports off. If a customer wants to host their own email server at home, fine...but make them call in and request that the port be opened. And make it clear that if their machine gets owned, they get cut off and fined before access will be reconnected. You can't look at these as two separate issues.

Currently, most ISPs are not monitoring what you send out on port 25. They have no technical means to do so, and acquiring that ability would be prohibitively expensive. ISPs can monitor what you send out through their SMTP relay server (most don't analyze the patterns proactively, but they can review the logs when they get a complaint) but generally botnets don't relay through the ISP's server.

But you're absolutely right about ISPs blocking outgoing access on port 25, unless a customer requests it to be open. The difficulty here is that most customers have dynamic IP addresses, and dynamically updating a firewall to allow access to port 25 from some customers and not others is non-trivial. My recommendation would be, block access to port 25 for all customers on dynamic IPs, and by default for all static IPs, but let customers with static IPs request for access to be allowed. Users running their own Linux boxes can configure their MTA to forward everything to the ISP's relay server. Everyone who needs to relay through a corporate mail server can use port 587.

So what's the problem with port 587? Not everyone has their mail server configured to allow it. But if ISPs start blocking port 25 and telling their customers to switch to 587 instead, I think more mail servers (that have users who need to relay from home) will start enabling port 587.

So how does switching to port 587 help? Won't the spammers just switch to that too? At first, yes, but here's the difference: MTAs can be configured not to allow any connections to port 587 without authentication and encryption. A bot can't just pick your domain name out of a hat, look up your MX, connect to port 587, and start sending crap, if the MTA is configured to require authentication. Port 25 can't require authentication, but if bots can't connect to port 25 because it's firewalled on their end, then we're making some progress.

This is not a change that should be made overnight; it will cause problems for a small handful of users. ISPs need to plan for this, set a date several months in advance, notify their customers of the plan and what they can do if they will be affected, and ideally coordinate with other ISPs so a whole bunch of ISPs all start blocking port 25 at the same time.

It'll never work, of course.

Re:An easy fix

[Vskye]

I'll go one better. Cut the fucking thing off the net until the user fixes the problem.
 
This is exactly what we do. The rule at our company is simple. 3 strike policy, and your out. If you send out a shitload of spam, etc we suspend the account. They then call in and bitch, we explain the situation and how they can resolve it by setting up a firewall, anti-virus software, etc. Or, refer them to a local computer tech to reinstall the OS, etc. If it happens again, strike 2. We inform them that they have one more chance to get it correct, or they are history.., no service again. Unfair? Nope. Our NOC watches this crap all the time. OS of choice for this crap is always Windows btw.

Re:An easy fix

[mysticgoat]

I agree with parent.

I also want to point out that the automotive industry went through a similar period about 35 years ago, when new cars were required to have pre-installed seat belts. It is now generally accepted that seatbelts, airbags, and less visible things like collapsing steering columns and controlled crumpling are GOOD THINGS TO HAVE IN A CAR. But at the time these were introduced, the sometimes strong argument against them was that none of these things were necessary for a well trained driver. Whatever your opinion about that, the truth of that time was that driving had become a necessary daily activity for a lot of people who had no real desire to do the training: they just wanted to get the kids to the soccer game; do the shopping; get to and from work without having to sit among the coughers and hackers in a germbox (bus)...

Computing is at this same place now. The number of people who have to use a computer to get things done, but who have zero interest in the computers themselves, now far outnumbers the number who are willing to do any training.

It is time to use some legal enforcement to make the network environment safe for the computing public. I think this could be done by applying existing laws regarding reckless endangerment, indiscriminate distribution of attractive nuisances, and so forth to the software industry.

Where is Ralph Nader when we need him? Preparing to run for President again?

Re:An easy fix

[repvik]

If anything, the software manufacturers should be held responsible. Stop blaming the users already, please.

Sure, the software manufacturers have some fault in this. But ignorance from the user doesn't help.
I would propose the following to an ISP:

1. Firewall the infestation from the internet
2. Give the user access to the mailserver to *download mail only*
3. Redirect all browsing attempts to a local server that serves step-by-step guides and ready-packaged tools to remove any virus infections/malware. Put up a helpful "send us a mail if these instructions doesn't help" form and leave any phone no. clearly visible.

How's Vista doing on this?

[Animats]

The big question: how many infected systems are running Vista? If there are a significant number of infected Vista systems, Microsoft blew it again. (Remember, Microsoft said that Windows 95 was going to fix security. Then Windows XP was going to fix security. Then Vista...)

On the other hand, if Vista systems aren't being turned into zombies, we may be at the beginning of the end.

Spammers have had to resort to more and more desperate efforts to keep spamming. In the late 1990s, spammers could just buy a big pipe and start sending. That's dead. Then there was spamming through open relays. That's essentially dead. There used to be a significant amount of "legitimate spam". That was killed by the combination of CAN-SPAM and spam filters - if it comes from a known spam source, it gets deleted, and if the sender lies about the source, they've committed a felony. China finally cracked down on "bulletproof hosting". (There are some "bulletproof hosting" outfits left, but most are gone and some of the remaining ones may be sting operations.) Zombies are about the only way left to spam in bulk. And note how few different spams there are. The number of actual spammers left isn't that large. It's small enough for law enforcement to target.

If the zombie problem can be cracked, which ought to be possible, spamming may drop to a minor problem.

Re:How's Vista doing on this?

[gujo-odori]

China cracked down on bullet-proof hosting? As a person who has been in the anti-spam business for over four years now, all I can say to that is:

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA AAAAAA!!!

Seriously, though, China remains a huge source of spam. Some may be zombies, I'm sure, but commercial spammers in China, operating on IPs with no forward or reverse DNS are very common. They've cracked down on bullet-proof hosting like they've cracked down on pirate DVDs: not really at all, just a little window dressing.

Re:Computer bots

[Technician]

How does one know if their computer (or relative's, etc.) is infected by a bot? Are there special diagnostic tools for that?

There are 3 things to look for.
1 Is it running Windows?
2 Is it connected to the Internet?
3 Has it been on for more than 20 minutes?

Re:If only more ISPs added their net blocks to PBL

[bcc123]

Absolute majority of spam now comes from desktops infected with mailing software. So no, in this case, the spammer won't simply relay through the ISP's mail servers. The reason they infect boxes in the first place is so that they can mail directly from all those IPs. The reasoning in your link is really outdated.

Bullshit

[Tablizer]

The bot problem is way exaggerated. They are very rare even insi FREE V1AGRA WITH YOUR LOW MORTGAGE!

Re:Open Source Virus Protection

[Gareth Williams]

I run a gnu/linux based operating system, and I don't forsee that I will ever run antivirus software on it. Yes, even if people actually start writing viruses that target it.

I don't look at automated breaches of security as any special case. A security breach is a security breach. Crack attempts, spyware, adware, malware, viruses, trogans, blah blah... it's all the same problem: stopping unauthorised code running on your machine.

If my mail client has a bug that allows remote code execution, the mail client is faulty and must be patched. If my browser has a bug that allows a remote site to snatch files off my local filesystem, then my browser is faulty as must be patched. If I, FSM forbid, stupidly download and run some malicious application then I am faulty and must be "patched".

I have all non-essential services turned off, I run a firewall, I keep all my applications up to date with security patches, and I only install software from my distribution's repositry.

I don't care how much money they are making for some big security companies, these "anti-virus" applications that people are so obsessed with running on windows are just an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

There is something fundamentally flawed with the idea of waiting until your security has already been breached and then trying to clean up after the fact. Once it's breached that's it, game over - reformat, reinstall O/S, and replace data with last known good backup.

Bat infestation?

[Joelfabulous]

Was I the only one whoe read it as "Bat Infestations Reach Nearly 1.2M?"

Man, are my eyes ever going fast. Stupid kerataconus.

Re:OK:

[godzilla808]

Several discussions of Linux Botnets:

http://lwn.net/Articles/222153/
http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/815
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=www.deb.r adcliff.com