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Researchers Take Down Koobface Servers
splitenz notes the first actions in the war against the Koobface botnet, taken on the heels of a comprehensive report (PDF) on the operations of the botnet and the criminal gang behind it. The researchers who analyzed Koobface are the same ones who brought Ghostnet to light. "Security researchers, working with law enforcement and Internet service providers, have disrupted the brains of the Koobface botnet.The computer identified as the command-and-control server used to send instructions to infected Koobface machines was offline late Friday (US Pacific time). Criminals behind the botnet made more than $US2 million in one year. Facebook accounts are used to lure victims to Google Blogspot pages, which in turn redirect them to Web servers that contain the malicious Koobface code. This action is only a stage in the war against Koobface."
I'm not sure how they did this exactly, but I'm pretty sure they didn't do it with the SQLNinja hacker tool from Fedora.
Awesome job guys.
Qxe4
OK, now, I'll expect to hear a lot of bleating about how it's unethical to use Black Hat methods to take down Spam Bot Networks...
Folks, spammers don't play by the rules, and playing by the rules will not, in the long term, even dent spammers.
If we're not willing to us a "no holds barred" approach to attacking the spam bot issue, well, you better just get used to more and more spam.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Those people need to be kicked off the net until they can demonstrate that they can play nicely with the rest of us.
Although the BOFH in me would like that, thoroughly fining them would be enough. And if we really had a law that would allow to ban people from the net for incompetence, how long would it take that it would be abused to cut off government critical voices and the like? Or some evil corp gets the machine of a critical blogger infected and he's offline. Not with me.
Why were people running a "flash player update" from a third party web site they got to from Facebook?
They are used to seeing the "you need the latest flash to view this content, click here to install it now". Sure when it's done the "normal" way the executable they randomly install will come from Adobe, but the entire process is begging for this tomfoolery.
To those who can't guess, I use Linux, won't install anything from Adobe and use noscript in the browser so forgive me if the "official" process has changed from the above idiotic implementation.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
So what you're saying is that it's somehow Adobe's fault? /duck
Well Done.
what? me worry?
The researchers took down three C&C servers (yay) but this doesn't get to the crux of the problem. We've been hijacking C&C's for decades; Malware authors are just moving to a P2P model (e.g. Stuxnet). These researchers should figure out how to stop the mass FTP compromises, or advise Google and Facebook on how to prevent their sites from being used as a platform for these attacks. Maybe then we could start solving this Malware problem...
In my working experience, while inability to safely drive a vehicle or properly operate machinery is cause enough for firing, I have YET to see anyone fired from a job due to their inability to properly is a computer. Even if using one is ESSENTIAL to their job. Even if their reckless usage causes actual damages.
I can't see how responsible computer use will get to be expected in the home user world when businesses don't even expect their employees to properly use them.
Although with the "evil corp" example, I'd argue people should be keeping their systems safe from evil corporations as well as evil crime syndicates
Are you safe from someone secretly breaking into your house and infecting your machine? And do you really only use software that is 100% proven to be not exploitable on machines with net connection? C'mon, it has to stay reasonable. You can't expect everyone to go online with Linux Live CDs or from a VM that is reverted to a clean snapshot after the session. Which are about the only ways to really stay clean.
Considering that we have graphics cards potentially on the way to being hacked so that you can't even be sure of the URL after checking the address bar, I think it's high time to stop blaming the victim and start calling these "separators of fools and their money" what they really are.
Thieves, cheaters, hackers, and most of all, terrorists.
Thieves because they steal, cheaters because they happily break the same rules that the rest of us are required to follow, hackers because of how they draft our machines into their botnet armies, and terrorists because of how they use that electronic firepower.
I will never forget when one company called Blue Security had the balls to stand up to spam...and got blown to bits by a DDoS attack.
They are victims, plain and simple. Sure, the stupid ones fall first, but nobody is really immune. It's just a case of low hanging fruit being the first to be harvested. If the scammers run out of stupid people they will happily start escalating to snare smarter folks.
Their computers do, however, pose a menace. They are infectious. And we should treat them like we do real people who have communicable diseases. We should quarantine them, and stop them from causing more damage.
Anyone who plays the "blame the victim" card is blinding themselves to just how serious of a problem there is, not to mention giving all those hackers a free pass just because they're giving out electronic darwin awards.
TANSTAAFM: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Market.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
That is why I have been saying for ages the most common software like Flash, along with updates to drivers like NV and ATI, should come through Windows Update. But sadly every Joe Schmo company that didn't get included would scream "antitrust!". What I've found to work in the meantime with clueless users is simply tell them "If a site says you need to update Flash or Java or whatever, go here, put checkboxes on what you need, then run it". Ninite has all the most common like Flash, Silverlight, .NET, Java, as well as browsers, media players, KLite Codec pack for those that get the "you need codecs to play" problem, pretty much anything they need.
I tell them if the site still demands they install something after running Ninite it is a virus and should be ignored and avoided. It does help to cut down on the clueless ones whose machines I don't have direct access to. For those I DO have access to I have Update Checker installed and running in the background so they KNOW if Filehippo don't tell them there is an update there is NO update. Everyone makes fun of the "stupid" users, but really nobody can know everything and some of these sites are damned hard to tell from real. Giving the clueless a few tools such as this really helps cut down the infections, although I think windows Update doing it would be even better.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'll agree with you if you will agree that Microsoft (and now Apple) are the primary abusers.
Bill Gates just couldn't leave another opportunity to rule the world alone long enough for the tech to mature enough for ordinary people to use it.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
"When are we going to start expecting people to act responsibly online? "
Never, and the expectation that "they" will act reasonably is itself unreasonable.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."