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.
View: Full story @ CNN
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.
View: Full story @ CNN
this is not news, pretty much common knowledge
this is not news, pretty much common knowledge
not to the millions of people who are in all the bot networks
A lot of CPU and HD activity? No, I don't think so. Sending spam probably doesn't require a whole lot of CPU and HD activity. Even if the bots are being used in a CPU-intensive activity (cracking a code or some such thing), there are two ways to get around this: 1) CPU throttling, and 2) disable activity until X minutes/hours of inactivity.
What I just mentioned are ways to fool people who actually monitor CPU usage and HD usage. As was already mentioned, most users do not monitor it or know how to read it, nor do they know how to interpret the sounds that their computers make. I wouldn't call those users retarded, though - in some ways, it'd be no different than a doctor saying "wtf, it's your body and you don't even know how to interpret this ECG, or what this sensation is like? Retarded!" If you have the knowledge, good for you - now put it to good use and try to save and inform those around you, rather than acting elitest.
I hate to say it, but he's right: The vast majority of PC users I deal with don't know their ass from their elbow when it comes to the PC.
I routinely see PCs running without any Anti-Virus, who's users have no clue what Spyware or Phishing is, and which are so overloaded with semi-useless toolbars and system-tray-resident wasteware that sometimes it would be faster to re-install windows than to try and salvage the install. Unfortunately, this is what you get when you let people who don't have a clue what they're doing access the internet.
The only solution is to educate people. The basic steps that everyone can take to secure and defend their PC from internet-launched attacks are remarkably easy to teach and it doesn't really cost much to do it. All the tools you need to do so are free to download and free for personal use. I'm not talking about shareware or hard to understrand technical papers, here. I'm talking about tools like Avast, AVG, Spybot A&D, Spwareblaster, AdAware (Free Edition), etc. I'm talking about teaching people how to spot a scam (It it seems to be too good to be true, it is) and why you don't need extra toolbars and the basics of how a computer actually works. It seems to me that there should be a PC-licencing course that you have to pass before you're allowed to have a personal computer of your own. We do it for automobiles, why not for computers?
IMHO, basic computer education should form a part of the fundamental grade-school curriculum in every school in the web-connected world. Seriously.
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