Slashdot Mirror
Top Botnets Control Some 1 Million Hijacked Computers
Puskas writes "Joe Stewart is the director of malware research at SecureWorks, and presented a dire view of the current botnet landscape at the RSA conference this week. He conducted a survey of the top spamming 'nets, extrapolating their size from the volume of emails that flow across the internet. By his calculations, the top 11 networks control just over a million machines, hitting inboxes with some 100 billion messages a day. 'The botnet at the top of the chart is Srizbi. According to Stewart, this botnet — which also goes by the names "Cbeplay" and "Exchanger" — has an estimated 315,000 bots and can blast out 60 billion messages a day.
While it may not have gotten the publicity that Storm has during the last year, it's built around a much more substantial collection of hijacked computers, said Stewart. In comparison, Storm's botnet counts just 85,000 machines, only 35,000 of which are set up to send spam. Storm, in fact, is No. 5 on Stewart's list.'"
Using Windows is a privilege, not a right. Anybody found to have a zombied computer should have their Internet connection cut off immediately and it should only be restored when they can demonstrate that they have removed the offending operating system and either installed a free and secure alternative, or bought a Mac. They clearly do not have the training or inclination to operate Windows safely.
I like to bash MS as much as the next, but the only reason Windows is the largest botnet host is because it has the largest market share. When you're creating a botnet, you're going for volume. If macs ever get significant market share they'll be targeted as well.
You also have to realize that most of these botnets are probably running on unpatched versions of XP or even earlier versions of windows. You can't blame Microsoft if people don't install security updates. And god knows we don't Microsoft installing them for us.