Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Botnet Expert Wants 'Special Ops' Security Teams

Posted by timothy on from the if-wishes-were-horses dept.

CWmike writes "Criminal cybergangs must be harried, hounded and hunted until they're driven out of business, a noted botnet researcher said as he prepared to pitch a new anti-malware strategy at the RSA Conference in SF. 'We need a new approach to fighting cybercrime,' said Joe Stewart, director of SecureWorks' counterthreat unit. 'What we're doing now is not making a significant dent.' He said teams of paid security researchers should set up like a police department's major crimes unit or a military special operations team, perhaps infiltrating the botnet group and employing a spectrum of disruptive tactics. Stewart cited last November's takedown of McColo as one success story. Another is the Conficker Working Group. 'Criminals are operating with the same risk-effort-reward model of legitimate businesses,' said Stewart. 'If we really want to dissuade them, we have to attack all three of those. Only then can we disrupt their business.'"

4 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A more simple solution... by guyminuslife · · Score: 5, Funny

    We get Dick Cheney to run the computer security task force, give him no oversight and a redacted budget. Then tell him there's oil in the Internet.

    I guarantee, all your regulatory problems will mysteriously vanish, just like all of the(*)#(*)@R_ *CARRIER LOST*

    --
    I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
  2. Well by I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If user education was going to work, it would have worked by now.

    ~ Anti-virus researcher Vesselin Bontchev

  3. Idea Guy by Anonymusing · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stewart... acknowledged he doesn't have all the answers. "I'm more of an idea guy."

    Thanks for the idea! Because nobody has thought of this before. Congrats on the ComputerWorld article, though.

    By necessity, the work would have to be done in secret, so as to not alert hackers that a group is on their trail.

    But... you just published your idea to the world.

    Stewart declined to comment on whether there were teams organized along the lines he suggests already in operation. "I don't want to comment on ones that have or have not started," he said.

    So... this may or may not be your own original idea, because there may or may not be teams like this already in existence?

    --
    Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
  4. Re:A more simple solution... by pzs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any solution that relies on people not being lazy morons is never going to work.