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JavaScript Botnet Sheds Light On Criminal Activity
CowboyRobot writes "Informatica64, a security research group, demonstrated the use of cached JavaScript to control computers connecting to a malicious proxy. 'The researchers found a variety of low-level criminals using their proxy server: fraudsters posing as British immigration officials offering work permits in hopes of stealing money and sensitive documents from their victims; a man pretending to be a pretty woman on a number of dating sites to con victims into sending money for a plane ticket; and another fraudster selling nonexistent Yorkshire Terriers.'"
It is very likely that companies and governments are already using this technique to eavesdrop on criminal activity, Alonso said.
Really? How about them using it to eavesdrop on -everyone- regardless on if it is "criminal" or not. Plus, I'm sure governments have more invasive methods rather than just this.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yep, this is proof... Javascript is a real programming language.
"... and another fraudster selling nonexistent Yorkshire Terriers.'"
Bullshit. Yorkshire Terriers most certainly exist.
It shouldn't be a crime to sell non-existant Yorkies. Just think of the ensuing peace and quiet of neighbors, because the would-be purchaser no longer has the cash for a real one. That man owes society nothing. Yay, society should reward him for performing such a public service.
Isn't that what XFCE is for?
i saw the talk a def con this weekend.
one of my take ways from this talk is when certain sites such as youtube/imgur/slashdot/reddit are
black listed due to corporate IT guidelines people often go to proxies to circumvent
this. So the net effect of black listing popular sites (besides being a pain) is to make your
network less secure.
imho ... wasted banwidth is better than getting hacked.
Nobody in their right mind runs javascript from random sites any more
Nobody cares except computer security professionals. Sure, I run noscript, adblock, and requestpolicy in FF, but no one else I know does unless I force them. Tons of sysadmins and low-level techs in the IT field don't even bother or know why they should care. So people who should have a clue are still running javascript (and flash, pdfs, and random exploit laden images from web ads) from random sites. What do you think that means about non-IT folk? They're all doing it, and only changing the browser defaults will do anything about it.
Which browsers were affected?
Was IE9 one of them?
In IE9, for example, the sliders for filtering comments in this page don't work at all.
Well, it looks like organized crime has found its own Etsy and Craigslist. I suppose it just demonstrates how the power of just-in-time communication and office automation can be an assest, even on the black market.
If all the communication is encrypted using SSL, which not only encrypts but authenticates all data, I don't see how a poisoned javascript file can get passed to the client.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
...for every nonexistent Yorkshire Terrier I'd had to chase out of my back garden I'd have millions.
Hell you can't even change browser defaults because "web designers" have gone suck fucking heavy with JavaScript that most sites will be completely unusable without it.
I used to try to get my customers to use NoScript but now its strictly ABP, why? Because it only takes a half a dozen "reload the page a dozen damned times trying to figure which of the 40 third party scripts loads the fucking content" easter egg hunts for people to become sick of it. Hell its gotten to the point i just sandbox the browser rather than mess with NoScript because i get sick of playing "Where's the content" 3 or 4 times for every. single. page. that I go to.
So if you want to bitch at somebody about the mess? Blame the website designers, a good 99% of whom has gone so damned heavy with third party scripts being loaded from everywhere that most of the time you can't even get the fricking content AT ALL without a ton of JavaScript loaded. And lets face it, its only gonna get worse with all the "HTML V5 Web 3.0 Apps in the cloud" crap coming down the line. To get most of that stuff to even function you have to load a half a dozen scripts from all over the place, what a mess.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Gnome 3 ? I wonder ... can a botnet of one really be called a botnet ?
Bad guys can run honeypots too!
it's true, and i'm not even sorry
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
I think it is safe to say (read: pull out of my ass) that 99% of all people surfing the web do so with Javascript enabled, all the time.
I am one of them. And I will keep on doing so. Your scaremongering isn't going to trick me into installing NoScript.
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
I am disappointed. I clicked the link out of sheer nostalgia , but it's 404. Then I actually typed goatse.cx into the address bar.. and someone is squatting on that domain alright, but not in the way I expected! So read up on wikipedia, and see that's very old news... FFS, what is the web coming to?
Its called KDE ;)
Kde4 seems to have lost some weight, or gnome3 put masses on.
But they feel pretty much the same.
I just switched to KDE4 and i must say: wow, you can configure ANYTHING, thing is, you HAVE TO configure anything -.-
If a site i visit, wont lead without JS, im not visiting that site again!
TFA says:
Alonso recommended that anyone who is using anonymous proxies or even the Tor network to only use servers that they trust.
If implemented on a server connected to via the Tor network, presumably this would gather traffic details. But would it reveal the end client IP? The Tor Project and others claim that Tor Button has now closed any known javascript vulnerabilities, so we have people (like Tails) claiming it is therefore ok to surf via tor with JS enabled. That doesn't smell right to me. What about unknown vulnerabilities anyway?
Many proponents of NoScript are often conflating Flash specific issues with JavaScript... and they dont even know it (they know just enough to falsely think that they know what they are talking about.)
"His name was James Damore."
It's good that they're light on crime, but I'm not sure why anyone would build a shed for their javascript botnet.
Well that means NO HTML V5 apps, no map sites, most forums and video sites won't work...hell you might as well say 'If the site won't run on my Pentium 100 I'm not coming back!" for all the good it'll do.
That is why I've been saying for years instead of pushing HTML V5 the geeks of the world need to be pushing for the death of JavaScript. Just like ActiveX it was never designed for security, and its had so much shit bolted on over the years good luck trying to tack on any security at this late date.
We need a NEW website language, designed from the ground up with security in mind, where everything is locked in a low rights "penalty box" and the website owners will have to run content strictly on site if they want it to be seen. if they want to get that content from somewhere else? Fine but they should be required to load it to their own site and scan it BEFORE shoveling it along to the user!
JavaScript was cooked up in the days of dialup, when the web was frankly a safer place. its not like that anymore and just as we wouldn't trust an AV from the Win95 era to stop modern threats so too should we not expect a language designed during that time to have a security model useful in today's world.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I won't disagree that the majority of web developers do things like load jQuery, before they even know why they need it. Usually because they're a novice trying to create a blog for their cousin and never had any actual web development experience. But please remember that not all web developers are like that.
When used properly JavaScript can enhance the overall security and experience of the site. For example, I like to SHA1 my user's passwords before submitting them to the server. Then I'll SHA1 that with a random seed and store it in the database. Or I'll add simple encryption algorithms to encrypt sensitive data. Of course it all runs under HTTPS, but never hurts to have a little more security.
Unfortunately the masses of web developers who "have gone suck fucking heavy" with JavaScript drown out the few of us who know when and how to use it.