Slashdot Mirror
New Massive Botnet Building On Windows Hole
CWmike writes "The worm exploiting a critical Windows bug that Microsoft patched with an emergency fix in late October is now being used to build a fast-growing botnet, said Ivan Macalintal, a senior research engineer with Trend Micro. Dubbed 'Downad.a' by Trend (and 'Conficker.a' by Microsoft and 'Downadup' by Symantec), the worm is a key component in a massive new botnet that a new criminal element, not associated with McColo, is creating. 'We think 500,000 is a ballpark figure,' said Macalintal when asked the size of the new botnet. 'That's not as large as some, such as [the] Kraken [botnet], or Storm earlier, but it's... starting to grow.'"
Why is another botnet, based on the incredibly insecure Windows VPS (virus propogation system), of interest. Yet another bot net, and more yabber (slang for talk) on the subject. Why doesn't the world of professional computer types fess up that Windows might look nice, might be easy for dummys to use, but is BAD. BAD for you. BAD for me. BAD for everybody. And the solution might be a little less pretty, perhaps, and a little more costly (depending on how you define "the solution"), but it will be GOOD. Damn the world's users for their blindly ignorant view on computers.
Most people don't understand the first thing about computers, and they don't have to.
I nearly want these people to GO AWAY (but then I would not have a particular job). Honestly in the long run, stress levels of everyone would be lower if these know-nothing-and-don't-want-to-know people would just go away and do sports or whatever ACTUALLY interests them. These are the people who watch televised sports and go to mlb.com to check 'stats', a total waste.