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Obama Administration Wants More Legal Power To Disrupt Botnets
Trailrunner7 writes: The Obama administration has proposed an amendment to existing United Stated federal law that would give it a more powerful tool to go after botnets such as GameOver Zeus, Asprox and others. In recent years, Justice, along with private security firms and law enforcement agencies in Europe, have taken down various incarnations of a number of major botnets, including GameOver Zeus and Coreflood. These actions have had varying levels of success, with the GOZ takedown being perhaps the most effective, as it also had the effect of disrupting the infrastructure used by the CryptoLocker ransomware.
In order to obtain an injunction in these cases, the government would need to sue the defendants in civil court and show that its suit is likely to succeed on its merits. "The Administration's proposed amendment would add activities like the operation of a botnet to the list of offenses eligible for injunctive relief. Specifically, the amendment would permit the department to seek an injunction to prevent ongoing hacking violations in cases where 100 or more victim computers have been hacked. This numerical threshold focuses the injunctive authority on enjoining the creation, maintenance, operation, or use of a botnet, as well as other widespread attacks on computers using malicious software (such as "ransomware" )," assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell wrote.
In order to obtain an injunction in these cases, the government would need to sue the defendants in civil court and show that its suit is likely to succeed on its merits. "The Administration's proposed amendment would add activities like the operation of a botnet to the list of offenses eligible for injunctive relief. Specifically, the amendment would permit the department to seek an injunction to prevent ongoing hacking violations in cases where 100 or more victim computers have been hacked. This numerical threshold focuses the injunctive authority on enjoining the creation, maintenance, operation, or use of a botnet, as well as other widespread attacks on computers using malicious software (such as "ransomware" )," assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell wrote.
Declare bot-nets a utility -- then regulate them.
(ducks and runs)
Could have stopped at "wants more legal power."
Actually, the headline could have been simply shortened to: Obama Administration Wants More Legal Power!
And whatever administration that comes next, will also want more legal power.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If you have a malicious device connected to an ISP, the ISP should be the one to disconnect it. The problem is that the target of the malicious device is often on another ISP.
Rather than allowing the government to be the hammer and force people offline, the government should create a coordination point where attacks can be reported and the proper ISP and their customers alerted to the activity.
One of the activities could be creating OSS that allows for firewall logs to send attack information to this central resource.
Another could be creating a help page that assists end users with understanding why they're having this issue and how to correct it.
Finally, proposing a Internet remediation zone would be the best end result. Instead of pulling the cord on infected devices, put them on a standard ACL/web filter that only allows them to software updates and AV signatures.
These are harder tasks for any one ISP to do, but a good thing for government to do.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
DoJ has declaired that all computers must join the Federal Botnet so they can't be absorbed into other botnets under a new executive order by the president. In other news, a large new botnet is reaking havoc on the internet. President Obama seeks new powers to deal with this emergent threat. Attacks have increased since the formation of the FedNet, and law enforcement is puzzled as to where the attacks are originating. Homeland Security has requested 900 billion dollars to meet this new mystery threat. This report brought to you by Dumbidum the perscription drug that makes you dumber and believe anything the television says. Side effects include obesity, diabetes, general statements with no meaning, defence of the liberal postion, defence of the conservative postion, divorce, screwed up kids who don't know what gender they are, rectal cancer, and death.
Man, the more I think of it, I REALLY like the idea of a standard remediation zone that all ISPs could deploy.
DNS would be filtered, only DNS responses to hosts on the allowed list. I would even be ok with MitM changes to DNS queries in this case.
Again, the idea is that you are only placed in this zone when your device has attacked another.
Once you think you've fixed the issue, they could allow all DNS traffic again, but watch your traffic to see if the attacks resume. This could be automated, so the end user doesn't have to constantly call the ISP.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
... this ransomware shit is tiresome and needs to be hammered into the ground. I can't find the bastards but the government can't hide a fucking thing.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
People in Hell want ice water...
Government always wants more power....
So can we now expect the Republicans declare to a crusade to promote the creation of botnets? ...or have I misunderstood how American democracy works these days?
they came for the Botnets.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra