Article: FBI: Millions of computers roped into criminal 'robot networks'

Started by Jason, November 29, 2007, 01:08:21 PM

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Jason

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/11/29/fbi.botnets/index.html

FBI: Millions of computers roped into criminal 'robot networks'

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- More than 1 million computers in the last five months have become part of robot networks, or "botnets," in which hackers take over computers without their owners' knowledge and use them in criminal campaigns, the FBI said Thursday.

FBI Director Robert Mueller says botnets are "the Swiss Army knives of cyber crime."

The bureau in June announced Operation Bot Roast to stop this emerging type of cyber attack, which the FBI estimates has resulted in $20 million in losses and theft.

More than 1 million computers were infected with botnets when the FBI launched Bot Roast, and another million have been identified since then. Industry numbers suggest there are millions more.

According to an FBI news release, New Zealand authorities in tandem with the FBI searched the home of an individual -- identified only by the cyber name, "AKILL" -- whose "elite international botnet coding group" is suspected of infecting more than 1 million computers.  Watch how the FBI lent a hand overseas ยป

Since the operation was launched, 13 search warrants have been served around the world, and eight individuals -- in Washington, Pennsylvania, Florida, California and Kentucky -- have been indicted or found guilty of crimes related to botnets. Such crimes include fraud, identity theft and denial of service attacks in which computer Web sites and other resources are made unavailable.

The schemes target more than individual computer users. The FBI in a news release said recent attacks have ensnared a major financial institution in the Midwest and the University of Pennsylvania.

FBI Director Robert Mueller noted in a speech earlier this month that there is potential to attack entire networks, send spam, infect computers and inject spyware -- not to mention more sinister crimes that threaten national security.

"Botnets are considered the Swiss Army knives of cyber crime. You name it, they can do it," Mueller said during a speech at Penn State University. "A botnet could shut down a power grid, flood an emergency call center with millions of spam messages or disable a military command post."

Here's how botnets work: A hacker known as a "botherder" takes over computers using viruses, worms or Trojan horses. A Trojan horse is software that appears to perform a harmless task while cloaking its true function.

Computer users unwittingly grant access to the botherder by clicking on an advertisement, opening an e-mail attachment or providing information to a "phishing" Web page, which is a phony site that mimics a legitimate site.

Once they have access, botherders use the computers for their criminal enterprise, making it difficult to trace.

According to a September report from Symantec Corp., China had the most infected computers at 29 percent, followed by the United States at 13 percent. However, Symantec said, 43 percent of all command-and-control servers -- which botherders use to relay commands to infected computers in their network -- were located in the United States.

Symantec reported that in the first half of 2007 it had detected more than 5 million computers that had been used to carry out at least one cyber attack a day.

The number represented a 17 percent drop since the previous reporting period, Symantec said.

The decrease is indicative of stronger computer security and law enforcement initiatives like Operation Bot Roast that are forcing botherders to abandon the technique, Symantec reported.

Protecting your computer is as easy as "putting locks on your doors and windows," according to an FBI news release. Make sure your anti-virus software is up to date, install a firewall, use complicated passwords and be careful opening e-mail attachments and advertisers' links on Web sites, the bureau advised.


NineseveN


Mark

hehe, I would totally love to run Linux, but I just can't. Too many programs that I use are only Windows compatable (Adobe Creative Suite 3, Zune, WoW, etc.). :(

NineseveN

Quote from: Killer Possum on November 29, 2007, 03:40:32 PM
hehe, I would totally love to run Linux, but I just can't. Too many programs that I use are only Windows compatable (Adobe Creative Suite 3, Zune, WoW, etc.). :(

You can run Wow in WINE...I'm pretty sure Adobe CS3 should work as well (CS2 runs in Ubuntu). Zune can be done at present in VMware, only at USB 1.1 speeds as far as I know.

Why not dual boot or run a Ubuntu VM?

I still have an XP partition, though I don't use it at all as I've found alternatives in *nix for everythign I use, even some specialized software that I didn't think I would, most of which I actually like better.

The only things I've seen probems with across the board are on laptops with wireless cards...they can be tricky.


It never hurts to donwload and run the LiveCD...you can run the Ubuntu OS straight from your CD rom to see if your hardware and such are compatible. Come on, give Ubuntu a little disk space on your box, you know you want to.  ;)

Mark

I haven't used WINE in a long time and I always found that it had problems. But maybe the new one is better. I will have to try a dualboot again on my desktop at some point again and see how that goes. Maybe if all goes well I will have to make the switch. :)

Quote from: NineseveN on November 29, 2007, 03:57:19 PMThe only things I've seen probems with across the board are on laptops with wireless cards...they can be tricky.

I myself was always having this issue until OpenSUSE 10.2 (now 10.3) came out. With those 2 versions I was able to get my Bradcom wireless card working flawlessly! But my laptop has crapped out on me in the last few weeks (was still working off and on, but now completely dead).

NineseveN

Quote from: Killer Possum on November 29, 2007, 04:01:43 PM
I haven't used WINE in a long time and I always found that it had problems. But maybe the new one is better. I will have to try a dualboot again on my desktop at some point again and see how that goes. Maybe if all goes well I will have to make the switch. :)

Overall, with the new releases of Ubuntu and Fedora, *nix is much better than it was even a year ago. I just recently made the switch, but I've been reading up on issues and fixes for the past 4 years. I finally made my primary OS Ubuntu 7.10 earlier this month. I just got so tired of Microsoft I simply couldn't take it anymore.
Buying a new laptop with Vista was the final breaking point, that is the worst OS I've ever used (tiedwith Windows ME)...if that's the direction MS is going, I want no part of it. I really thought they were on to something with XP (by far their best release), but Vista killed that perception for me.

Right now, Adobe CS3 doesn't appear to work with WINE, so I guess that's out for the time being.

Anyway, I think I've derailed this thread enough already. Peace.  :)