Researcher: Russian hosting network runs a protection racket
,----[ Quote ]
| The price for "protection:" US$2,000 per month.
|
| The DDoS attacks are, like almost all such mass attacks, conducted by a
| botnet, an army of previously-compromised computers that can be told to
| hammer a site one day, spew huge quantities of spam the next. Numerous
| researchers, for example, have linked the RBN to the Storm botnet, an
| amorphous collection of PCs that have been infected with the Trojan by the
| same name. Some security experts have put the blame for a massive series of
| DDoS attacks against
|
| Estonian government sites last year on the RBN.
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1496227928&rid=-50
Don't thank Putin. Thank Windows, which is insecure by design.
Sounds like they are pulling a McBride or pulling a Ballmer up there. US$2,000
per month for 'protection'.
Related:
Microsoft is the world's biggest cause of zombie remailers
,----[ Quote ]
| In China, it would take about one and one-half years wages (for the
| average Chinese) to buy a legitimate copy of Windows Vista. If you
| could find it here.
|
| Microsoft is the biggest cause of zombie remailers in the world,
| because they make noises, but do not do anything to address the
| real digital inequities in the world.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38202
What Is A Botnet?
,----[ Quote ]
| Usually, the zombies in use of a botnet are compromised computers running the
| Microsoft Windows operating system that have been infected with some sort of
| malware.
`----
http://www.yoursdaily.com/science_tech/what_is_a_botnet
2008 kicks off with critical Vista/XP patch
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft's first set of security bulletins for 2008 may be slim, but will
| include a fix for a critical vulnerability in XP and Vista.
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15956/53/
In zombies we trust
,----[ Quote ]
| A little over a year ago, I wrote an editorial where in back-of-the-envelope
| style (.pdf) I estimated that perhaps 15-30% of all privately owned computers
| were no longer under the sole control of their owner. In the intervening
| months, I received a certain amount of hate mail but in those intervening
| months Vint Cert guessed 20-40%, Microsoft said 2/3rds, and IDC suggested
| 3/4ths. It is thus a conservative risk position to assume that any random
| counterparty stands a fair chance of being already compromised.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=661
New spam botnet leaves Storm for dead
,----[ Quote ]
| According to Marshal, more than 70 percent of spam is generated by five
| botnets.
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16419/1054/
Russian FSB 'protecting' Storm Worm gang
,----[ Quote
| The creators of the Storm Worm botnet are known to US authorities but a lack
| of co-operation from their counterparts in St. Petersburg, Russia, is
| preventing action being taken.
|
| Dmitri Alperovitch director of intelligence analysis and hosted security at
| Secure Computing told The Washington Post that Russian President Vladimir
| Putin and political influence within the Federal Security Service (Russia's
| successor to the Soviet KGB) was hampering prosecution efforts. The
| implication is that elements of Russian intelligence agencies are protecting
| the city's cybercriminals.
|
| St. Petersburg was the centre of the infamous Russian Business Network. It's
| also reckoned by some to be the city the Storm Worm (more properly Trojan)
| authors call home.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/storm_worm_protection/
U.S. cyber counterattack: Bomb 'em one way or the other
,----[ Quote ]
| If the United States found itself under a major cyberattack aimed
| at undermining the natio's critical information infrastructure,
| the Department of Defense is prepared, based on the authority of
| the president, to launch a cyber counterattack or an actual
| bombing of an attack source.
`----
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/020807-rsa-cyber-attacks.html
The feds weigh in on Windows security
,----[ Quote ]
| "The benefits of this move are enormous: Common, secure configurations
| can help slow botnet spreading, can radically reduce delays in patching,
| can stop many attacks directly, and organizations that have made the
| move report that it actually saves money rather than costs money,"
| Paller wrote.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6172158.html
Telegraph floored by DDoS attack
,----[ Quote ]
| Cyber-attacks have been much in the news of late. Last week,
| Russian and European leaders held a summit in the aftermath of a
| three-week cycle of denial of service attacks targeting the
| Baltic countries' internet infrastructure.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/22/telegraph_ddos/
Botnet 'pandemic' threatens to strangle the net
,----[ Quote ]
| Cerf estimated that between 100 million and 150 million of the
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| 600 million PCs on the internet are under the control of hackers,
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| the BBC reports.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/26/botnet_threat/
|
|
