Eavesdropping on a Botnet

wild3rbeast writes "Joe Stewart, a senior security researcher with LURHQ's Threat Intelligence Group has figured out a way to silently spy on a botnet's command-and-control infrastructure, and finds that for-profit crackers are clearly winning the cat-and-mouse game against entrenched anti-virus providers. From the article: 'The lesson here is once you get infected, you are completely under the control of the botmaster. He can put whatever he wants on your machine, and there's no way to be 100 percent sure that the machine is clean. The only way to be [completely] sure the system is malware-free is to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.'"

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's TC!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only way to be [completely] sure the system is malware-free is to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.'""

Trusted Computing to the rescue!

Re:Happened to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

My house was robbed once... even with fully locked doors, up to date alarm company subscription, and a dog. For peace of mind, I decided blowing up the house was the best option. I've since moved to the woods and have been civilization free.

Re:Next opportunity

[Enoxice]

I can see it now: In the future there will only be one botnet, then the entire hacking community will just be a big game of RootThisBox (http://rootthisbox.org/ [rootthisbox.org]) (hmm...RTBs website seems to be redirecting to HackThisSite for some reason).

malware-free system?-Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Until someone creates something that can infect the various *nixes that is."

That's impossible. How do I know. Just "Ask Slashdot".

Re:malware-free system?

[Nested]

Until someone creates something that can infect the various *nixes that is. Or an asteroid destroys Earth.

Be sure...

[shmlco]

"The only way to be [completely] sure the system is malware-free is to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system."

I say we take off and nuke 'em all from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

so many only/lonely ways.

[mapkinase]

The only way to be [completely] sure the system is malware-free is to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.'

In other news: the only way to be completely sure your wife is not cheating on you is to whack her and her alleged boyfriend.

Re:Happened to me.

[JoeCommodore]

This needs some re-working

My house was robbed once...

It was one of those cheap houses, you know using old materials and not the best contractors (the doors and windows would not always close properly.)

even with fully locked doors, up to date alarm company subscription, and a dog.

Though that brand of locks use one of five common keys, and the alarm company sometimes works with other companies to let marketers in, and the dog, as vigient as he is is just a dog and frankly pretty stupid.

For peace of mind, I decided blowing up the house was the best option. I've since moved to the woods and have been civilization free.

Actually it was more like a posh wooded suburb gated-community thing, where all the prices are higher and the selection is more limited, but the cars are to die for. I don't even assoiate with my old neighbors much anymore. My kids ands wife are much more happier and I have a lot less stress about stuff like that.

Now if it were Linux, you would probably be in the woods, in some commune, inside an abandoned high security military bunker, whith a lot of really smart people that don't socialize all that well.

Too easy...

[MoogMan]

My house was robbed once... even with fully locked doors, up to date alarm company subscription, and a dog.

You probably had Windows...

Re:Windows LiveCD

[ozmanjusri]

Windows is NOT like Linux in many respects, one is that you actually have to pay over and over and over again for someone elses hard work

Fixed that for you.

Re:Reinstalling is not always the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a pseudo-geek with a handful of windoze skills who has no idea how much he doesn't know. Congratulations on writing some crappy .bat script, you are officially eligible to work in the tech support department at Best Buy.

Re:Why do you rob banks?

[Nutria]

someone else's poorly-maintained Linux box; the one that the admin thinks is impenetrable, because it runs Linux, and so hasn't updated it or even looked at it in ages.

Sacrilege! Sacrilege, you Windows fanboi!!!! How dare you criticize the Holy Penguin!!!!!!!!!!

Go to the D.M.C.A

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, since he effectively broke a digital access control (reverse-engineering "trivial" encryption) and then ran the program in ways that the author did not explicitly permit (in a sandnet) then he's a criminal as bad as DMCA Jon.
AC