Are Computer Crooks Renting Out Your PC?

An anonymous reader writes "Brian Krebs recently posted an interesting piece looking at an invite-only service marketed on shadowy underground forums that lets crooks 'rent' or 'buy' access to individual botted PCs that can be used to tunnel traffic. The story looks at the mechanics of renting out bots, and the author traces some of the infected systems back to real businesses. From the post: 'The Limited; Santiam Memorial Hospital in Stayton, Ore.; Salem, Mass. based North Shore Medical Center; marketing communications firm McCann-Erickson Worldwide; and the Greater Reno-Tahoe Economic Development Authority.'"

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Re:Are Computer Crooks Renting Out Your PC?

[hairyfeet]

Want to know what's funny? he did exactly what I'd said they'd do and went straight to the memes. in this case it is the classic "ChangingThe GoalPosts (TM)" in that he had ZERO to argue my points with so he completely changes the subject to kernel exploits, which is also covered in "LinuxIsJustTheKernel(TM)" .

Now whether the FOSSies (which I use to separate FOSS users from Zealots, FOSSies are like Moonies in that EVERYTHING IS PERFECT and anybody that points out their BS is a "ShillAstroturferTroll(TM)". Now whether the FOSSie wants to believe it or not post SP2 with a decent free AV like Avast or Comodo CIS (both of which use heuristics and sandboxing by default) both of which are 100% free, then it is pretty damned hard to infect windows without the user helping the bug along. This is why we have seen post XP that malware is increasingly going the Trojan route, see fake AV and "Porn Codec.exe" for examples.

And notice he was VERY careful not to say a word about the Linux driver model, the most broken ass POS teabagged pile of garbage every foisted off onto man. And no wonder it is garbage when the controller of the kernel writes, and I quote" The kernel isn't designed, it grows like a virus" (yeah Linus, its called an STD and your ass would be FIRED for that Mickey Mouse shit anywhere else).

The simple fact is Linux had its shot during the XP pre SP2 and Vista era, and it blew it. They didn't fix the mess, instead just piling more broken releases atop a broken driver model and ended up a broken POS. They will put up with that in the server dept because MSFT server licensing is frankly a clusterfuck from hell, so putting up with the BS of Linux is cheaper than hiring a lawyer to read a MSFT server EULA.

But in the desktop, of which we speak? Things have never been better in Windows land, sorry. Windows 7 is trivial to lock down, trivial to admin, trivial to get hardware for, trivial for even the most clueless to keep safe thanks to low rights mode and users no longer EVER having admin rights (even when you run as admin you are really a power user with admin reserved for SYSTEM).

So why does Windows still get bugs? Three words: Third Parties and PEBKAC. Third parties keep MSFT from packing anything more powerful than Windows Defender in by default because both the OEMs and bunches like Symantec make a killing on trialware, which thankfully windows security will now flag if you don't keep up to date, and PEBKAC because the malware writers learned long ago it is easier to break a system if the user helps you.

I had a beautiful secure machine I sold last week, the customer just paid me to clean it, so what happened? He refused to listen to me or the AV which practically threw itself in front of him trying to stop him (he uninstalled it to get it to "shut up") and then he proceeded to install a bunch of dodgy shit like Limewire and then was amazed when I ran my LiveCd and showed him he was infected all to hell.

Now how are you gonna blame MSFT for that? The guy IGNORED all warnings, disabled AV, and WENT OUT OF HIS WAY to install dodgy shit. And you know what? That is how a good 90%+ of the infections I see cross my desk. The rest are old crap like Adobe or those that turn off updates because they are running "hot windows" and naturally get pwned. Shock shock, running hot software gotten off dodgy warez sites isn't safe. color me surprised!

And for you "Linux advocates" out there? FIX YOUR BROKED ASS SHIT and we retailers will be HAPPY to carry your product! Do you think we LIKE buying Windows licenses? We do so because YOUR SHIT DON"T WORK because your drivers might as well come with the Goatse image for a logo, since they are gonna shit all over themselves come first update! BTW did you know Dell, on of the largest retailers ON THE PLANET can't even use your default repos? Do you know why? It is because if you update ANY Dell linux offering with the default repos it breaks sound and networking! FIX YOUR BROKED ASS SHIT and then we'll talk, otherwise you are just blowing smoke up our collective asses and calling it perfume.