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Microsoft, FBI Takedown Citadel Botnet
hypnosec writes "Microsoft in collaboration with the FBI have successfully taken down the Citadel botnet which was known to control millions of PCs across the globe and was allegedly responsible for bank fraud in excess of $500 million. Citadel was known to have over 1,400 instances across the globe with most located in the US, Europe, India, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. It would install key-logging tools on target systems, which were then used to steal online banking credentials."
I'm wigglin' my ass! So, who wants my ass to become a spaghetti noodle?
Wait what? Thats over $350k per machine. Are the numbers screwed up here or is this just part of the NSA slush fund to build data centers?
Take Down
Call me when they take down the bankers who have illegally laundered trillions of dollars in the LIBOR scandal.
The FBI should use the C&C servers to force the machines to run Windows Update and clean the machines of the virus. The users obviously don't want to take care of their own machine, and if something goes wrong they'll know that they had a virus.
The real botnet is being operated by Microsoft itself. How better to get everyone's personal information than by having your entire operating system be a huge pile of spy software?
The real reason there are so many viruses and bits of spyware on Windows is because the OS itself was programmed (throughout its many incarnations) to spy on its users, and the hackers are merely writing programs that enable those functions. Functions that already exist within the OS! Functions that were put there at the request of various elements of the United States government!
Does nobody else find it fishy that the ruling in the United States vs. Microsoft case (involving antitrust back in 2000) was overturned shortly afterwards?
And on an unrelated note, FYI:
Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.
It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings....
DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?
Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to5 grams for margarine.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added.
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.
And now, for Margarine.. ...
Very High in Trans fatty acids.
Triples risk of coronary heart disease
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..
Lowers quality of breast milk
Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.
And here's the most disturbing fact...
Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC... and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT
These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).
Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:
* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny micro-organisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?
On *Windows* target systems, you mean.
on the phone and lead them thru the process of cleaning up their infected machine.
That worked perfectly when they called me :-)
It's great that Microsoft is saying "It was our crumby software that allowed this botnet to spawn, we've got to do something about it". But I think we've got to be really careful about giving the company any credit for it's actions. These are fundamental things which every maker of a product needs to be responsible for. If GM sold cars which exploded, they'd be taken to account. Software producers have long since gotten away with destructive negligence through the use of (often illegal) EULA's.
It's about time that the law recognised the essential nature of computers in society and the makers of such should be held to account when their product doesn't live up to expectations.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jun13/06-05DCUPR.aspx
Now.. with better writing (than the original linked article)
I must object to the use of "Takedown" as a verb.The headline clearly should have been "Microsoft, FBI Take Down Citadel Botnet".
This issue is rampant in IT circles, in which "setup", "login", "checkout", and "shutdown" (all of which are acceptable nouns) are more commonly used as verbs than are the verb phrases from which they were constructed: "set up", "log in", "check out", and "shut down". The nouns are each composed of a verb and a preposition, and now in our laziness, we insist on using these compound words as if they were still verbs. Take a minute - a fraction of a second, actually - and insert the space character that makes them two separate words, and therefore makes them a valid verb phrase.
Some may reply that I am being uptight about this, but I usually don't make a big deal of the poor language skills (or simple carelessness) of others. Indeed, who has the time? However, I speak up in cases such as this because this sort of slop is indicative of sloppy thinking. And I should never find sloppy thinking amongst the brilliant professionals who patronize this establishment.
when they have all the access through the corporations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
There's an android malware discussion one article up on the front page which would benefit from your pointed and unbiased opinion. I will wait patiently for your post.
out of the banks hands and put right back into the economy by the perps. Nothings to see, move along....
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Given that likelihood that a fair number of these bottled machines were made vulnerable by flaws in MSoft software, it is nice to see MSoft talking some action to help clean up their mess.
Sorry, do you think key loggers are impossible on Linux or something?
Still waiting. Tick tock.
A car made by GM probably will explode if attacked by hostile parties.
THL phish sticks
It seems I'm the only one who questions such things, but:
On whose authority was this action pursued?
Since when does the FBI or MSFT or RIAA or MPAA or North Korea or Anonymous or [etc] have a right to diddle with others computers?
What gives them (for any incarnation of "them") the authority to modify privately-owned computers?
If it's for the indiscriminate greater good, then that seems more like military action...which I don't think the FBI is authorized to deal with, and certainly not any private US-based company.
(To be clear: I'm happy whenever I hear about a botnet being destroyed. But I'm unhappy whenever I see the government or anyone else assuming authority where none has been granted.)
Kid-proof tablet..
"Sorry, do you think key loggers are impossible on Linux or something?"
No. I'm simply stating that this specific key-logger is focused on windows systems.
For platform-specific malware I it would be good always mentioning which platforms it affects.
Given that likelihood that a fair number of these bottled machines were made vulnerable by flaws in MSoft software, it is nice to see MSoft talking some action to help clean up their mess.
More like Microsoft is having to spend resources to clean up the mess the developers in their ecosystem have created.
Java, Flash and Acrobat. Those are the three big vectors. A Windows machine with none of the three will be pretty damn safe.
So do we want corporations enforcing the law? Especially since corporations, through lobbying efforts, buy laws in the first place. In this case, botnets exist because security problems MS themselves put into their software. So MS creates a problem, and gets itself deputized to solve the problem? Imagine the MPAA and RIAA being deputized to enforce laws they bought and paid to have written.
Still nothing. I guess that just confirms you are a shill, the worst kind like you accuse Microsoft of employing all over this site.
I'm not sure what angle that is supposed to go. It feels like an initial kick in the junk, followed by a good job by helping foil the bot-net.
Takedown is a noun.
Take down is the phrasal verb your title is looking for.