Researchers Infiltrate and 'Pollute' Storm Botnet

ancientribe writes "Dark Reading reports that a group of European researchers has found a way to disrupt the massive Storm botnet by infiltrating it and injecting "polluted" content into it to disrupt communication among the bots and their controlling hosts. Other researchers have historically shied way from this controversial method because they don't "want to mess with other peoples' PCs by injecting commands," said one botnet expert quoted in the article.

Comments

Re:It's not Really...

[cromar]

Sure, in general that is a valid concern. However,

The pollution attack... "overwrites" the P2P botnet's key, an identifier that's used to get command information to the bots. Storm generates keys to find other bots, the researchers noted. So there really isn't a risk, in this case, of executing maleficent code or overwriting large portions of anything. The Storm operators might modify the peers to self-destruct the host or something, though I doubt they will given that Storm needs the host to be at all useful.

Re:Who is liable in the event of retaliation?

[drrck]

TFA states that they are changing the hash values that the bots use to talk to one another. They aren't issuing commands, they're interrupting the communication of the bots.

Re:It's not Really...

[kaiser423]

If you RTFA, they are not sending any commands to the end computer. They are just disrupting communications between the nodes.

Effectively, fracturing the net into multiple pieces; not taking control o the computers and doing something.

This is not a counter-attack to the infection or anything like that. They're just jamming the comm system that the bots use. They're not actively doing anything to the bot or computer.

Re:It's not Really...

[geekboy642]

You can be sued for anything. Being sued for something doesn't mean that act is: illegal, immoral, unethical, or mean.

That said, many many jurisdictions in the United States have a so-called "Good Samaritan" law. This is a law that protects you from criminal charges and--depending on the state--lawsuits. For instance, the law in Texas is quite broad and protects anyone who acts in good faith from any civil damages. On the other hand, California's law is much more strict, and protects only licensed EMTs, Doctors, Nurses, etc. at the actual scene of an emergency.

Know the law in your state! http://www.cprinstructor.com/legal.htm