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Researchers Hijack Mebroot Botnet, Study Drive-By Downloads
TechReviewAl writes "Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara hijacked the Mebroot botnet for about a month and used it to study drive-by downloading. The researchers managed to intercept Mebroot communications by reverse-engineering the algorithm used to select domains to connect to. Mebroot infects legitimate websites and uses them to redirect users to malicious sites that attempt to install malware on a victim's machine. The team, who previously infiltrated the Torpig botnet, found that at least 13.3 percent of systems that were redirected by Mebroot were already infected and 70 percent were vulnerable to about 40 common attacks."
so universities can break the law but common criminals can't? remind's me of nazi/japanese experiments on humans in the name of 'science'.
Really? Intercepting a botnet reminds you of experiments leading to the deaths and suffering of thousands of helpless adults and children? No I see your point, exactly the same thing.
I am the lawn!
Strikes me that this is a "crime" somewhat akin to stealing money from a drug dealer. Sure, I guess you are doing something "illegal" since it's not your money, but it's not like the drug dealer is going to report you to the police...
Announcing this activity publicly doesn't strike me as particularly prudent, even if it is valuable information...
Not even that. There is absolutely no personal gain for them in this. Even stealing the money has a gain and this experiment neither hurts nor benefits anybody. It's a completely neutral act not to be trolled into some nonsensical paralell about murder or theft.
I am the lawn!
This is more like intercepting and recording the conversations had among a network of criminals, which yields a lot of good insights into how these organizations operate. This can be extremely valuable information if it's forwarded to appropriate law enforcement personnel, which don't always have the technical talent or resources to conduct investigations like this in the first place.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
so universities can break the law
They broke the law? Citation needed.
Oh wait... you didn't even RTFA.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Yes.
They didn't exactly hijack the botnet. They just hijacked it's reproductive system. RTFA.
It spreads by a javascript which the criminals were able to inject into innocuous sites. This javascript sent visitors to an auto-generated URL which was registered by the botnet owners. This URL hosted the actual exploit which attempted to attack vulnerable visitors who landed there from the javascript. The URL changed every day, but by predicting it, the researchers were able to register domains before the botnet owners. As a result, victims of the drive-by javascript landed on the researchers' server instead of the botnet owners' servers. Needless to say, the researchers didn't attack the visitors and exploit their machines, but they did do some profiling to find out what sort of computers were hitting their server and how many of the visitors were unpatched, vulnerable boxes.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Often, these bot nets are designed to install software for commission. The company paying the commission should be held accountable. They can play dumb and claim that they didn't know it was being installed in this manner, sure. But it would be fairly simple to make it so the installed software makes itself known to the user. It would be fairly simple to make it easy to un-install as well.
I know there are ways around it. But, it'd be great to see the companies selling the products that are making revenue to be accountable. They are enabling it. And they know it.
I've never really understood the whole Mac vs. WIndows debate, and it's even more pointless now that you can have Mac, Win, and Linux running on the same box at the same time. Now, vi vs. emacs is a legitimate jihad.
((vi is better))
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
They have some serious cojones to be messing with dangerous organised criminals. Good on 'em and I hope they keep fighting the good fight -- and not come unstuck. They are stepping on the toes of some seriously ugly, violent people.
It was a case where one guy was buying a car from another guy, paid for it, and never got it. There was no evidence which showed that the seller intended to keep the money and the car at the time the money changed hands. So, according to the indictment he did not steal the money. They showed intent several months later when he modified the car (you wouldn't modify a car unless you considered it yours), but the indictment clearly stated that he was being charged for theft by intending to deprive the buyer of his property (money) when he took the payment, not several months down the line whenever he decided to keep the car. If the state had worded the indictment differently so that we could establish intent at a later date then he would have been found guilty.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Richard Kemmerer, one of the authors, gave a Tech Talk at Google titled "How to Steal a Botnet and What Can Happen When You Do." The video of the talk is available on YouTube.