Raising a Botnet In Captivity

holy_calamity writes "Technology Review reports that researchers installed 3000 copies of Windows XP on a high performance cluster at a Canadian university and set loose the Waledac botnet on them. It's the first time researchers have built and operated their own botnet as a strategy to better understand those at large on the internet. Doing it inside an experimental computing cluster removes the legal and ethical complications of experimenting with live botnets that control innocent users' machines."

Comments

Were they..

[Anonymous Coward]

licensed copies?

Re:Real environments

[GameboyRMH]

Terminal stupidity?

How to catch a virus:

1. Install/buy a new PC with Windows 7, now more secure than ever!

2. Install the usual apps, like the ever popular Adobe Reader, Flash, and Java RE, maybe even Firefox because it's faster and more secure! Also make sure you have an AV, whether it's AVG or the 1-year subscription to Norton or McAffee that came with your PC.

3. Using the new super-secure IE8 browser (or even Firefox) at any time when the number of zero-day/unfixed exploits for it or any of the apps you installed in step 2 is greater than zero, browse your legitimate website of choice.

4. A malicious ad with brand-new and/or metamorphic code exploits one or more of the apps mentioned in steps 2-3 and pwns your user account with no user interaction required. In some cases it may exploit a vulnerability in Windows itself and infect your whole machine.

5. Congratulations! You're a botnet peer!