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New Massive Botnet Building On Windows Hole
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Dec 01, 2008 10:29 PM
from the so-patch-it-already dept.
from the so-patch-it-already dept.
CWmike writes "The worm exploiting a critical Windows bug that Microsoft patched with an emergency fix in late October is now being used to build a fast-growing botnet, said Ivan Macalintal, a senior research engineer with Trend Micro. Dubbed 'Downad.a' by Trend (and 'Conficker.a' by Microsoft and 'Downadup' by Symantec), the worm is a key component in a massive new botnet that a new criminal element, not associated with McColo, is creating. 'We think 500,000 is a ballpark figure,' said Macalintal when asked the size of the new botnet. 'That's not as large as some, such as [the] Kraken [botnet], or Storm earlier, but it's... starting to grow.'"
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[+]
Technology: Microsoft to Issue Emergency Patch For File-Sharing Hole 348 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft said late Wednesday that it plans to release a critical security update today to plug a security hole present in all supported versions of Windows. The company hasn't released any details about the patch yet, which is expected to be pushed out at 1 p.m. PT. Normally, Redmond issues security updates on Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of each month. The Washington Post's Security Fix blog notes that each of the three times in the past that Microsoft has departed from its patch cycle, it was to fix some really nasty vulnerability that criminals already were exploiting to break into Windows PCs."
Reader filenavigator points out an article which describes the hole as an SMB vulnerability, and says it "allows anyone to access a Windows machine remotely without any user name or password. Any machine that exposes Windows file sharing is vulnerable." Update: 10/23 17:42 GMT by T : Reader AngryDad adds a link to Microsoft's more detailed memo.
[+]
Washington Post Blog Shuts Down 75% of Online Spam 335 comments
ESCquire writes "Apparently, the Washington Post Blog 'Security Fix' managed to shut down McColo, a US-based hosting provider facilitating more than 75 percent of global spam. " Now how long before the void is filled by another ISP?
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Go vigilante (Score:2, Insightful)
It's time MS write botnets to exploit their own holes as means for patching said hole. Who gives a shit about the ethics of it, we are losing.
ISPs need to be more vigilant as well. Cut off subscribers ASAP when they're machine begins sending botnet traffic.
Re:Go vigilante (Score:5, Insightful)
ISP action is definitely appropriate. If they can tell who is using torrent software, they should be able to tell who is sending spam and which machines are part of a botnet.
Filtering/quarantine at this level is like shooting down a scud missile on the way up instead of on the way down.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Take a look at Schneier's arguments against this: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/02/benevolent_worm_1.html [schneier.com]. One additional point is that stack/heap overflows and other memory-corrupting vulnerabilities often can't be made to be 100% reliable, and can be difficult to code for different service packs and such. This can be, and is, coded around as a matter of course, but a bug in the exploitation process can have disastrous and unpredictable results (in this case, interruption of a large swath of c
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It would be so easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time i see one of these high-yield Windows remote execution holes, I'm tempted to couple a timed network-stack-erasing payload to it (24 hours should be enough for it to be able to infect through vpn-connected laptops and such) and send it cracking. Then i always begin to wonder why this hasn't been done already; is the combination of narcissistic recklessness and technical competence really that rare? It could be argued that it's more fun to play pranks and infiltrate corporate and government networks, but we don't even see things like that (I know it was more common up to the early 90s, when the "criminal prankster hacker scene" still existed outside of small tight groups...)? Or do people just cover it up? You sysadmins out there, have you ever had anything like that happen to you, or anyone you know?
There's no profit it in. (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much. The closest was the "I Luv U" email which overwrote media files.
Since then, it's all about profit. Why destroy a computer when you can use it to send spam?
If you want to be really cruel, your "virus" would randomly alter a few numbers on any Excel spreadsheet it could access.
Parent
Re:It would be so easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Welcome to the 21st century.
Unlike the 90's, viruses aren't typically coded for the purpose of doing as much damage as possible. Between eBay, Paypal, Amazon, and the other major e-commerce sites, the internet is now worth hundreds of billions - even trillions - of dollars every year. Dollars that would be lost if it went down or that can be stolen by the boatload. By and large, the motive for hacking - including the use of botnets - is all money driven these days. The two most common attack vectors are to either hold a site for ransom, threatening to take it offline via a Denial of Service attack if a certain mount is not paid or to simply use the masses of drones to slow down anti-phishing efforts by distributing the fake page across hundreds of bots (after all, you can run a web server using 500k of RAM and 200k of disk space, plus space for the pages, i.e. a Paypal clone takes up about 5MB on a drone.)
Judging by the size of this one, I'm going to guess its use will be the former rather than the later. 500,000 bots, all launched, say, the week of Christmas, would do a LOT of damage. Many of those systems will be corporate boxes and nobody will be sitting at them to monitor or notice anything, meanwhile a site that offers "last minute" shipping could be taken offline at the...well...last minute, costing them billions in lost sales. $10 mil would be a small price to pay to avoid that.
So yeah, it was more common in the 90's, but hacking solely to cause damage isn't something done any more. At all. The only people doing that would be, for example, if the Chinese were trying to crack a US State Department or Pentagon system (using the drones for brute force remote login attacks). That happens, but even there, the intent isn't to harm the systems, but merely to gain a valid login so you can steal information. This goes on in the corporate world too. After all, don't you think Ford would be willing to cough up $2 mil if someone could hand them a copy of Toyota's future business plan right now?
It's not so much that there aren't people who want to "just cause damage" but rather that those people grew up and realized they could make a lot of money by NOT damaging the systems. They needed jobs and there aren't a lot of positions available for someone with a skill set that includes brute forcing SSH logins. The generation that has come since them, mine (I'm 21, but I have friends who are 18 and 19, and we see each other as about the same) doesn't generally posses the level of skill of those who came before us. Sure, I can crack SSH and brute force NT Hashes with the best of them, but if you sit me and my 60 year old uncle both in front of a binary disassembler only he will know what he's doing, and finding the kind of flaw needed to make this massive botnet will require a very intimate knowledge of one.
Sorry, the script kiddies that bring the world to its knees have grown up and they refuse to work without pay.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Many of those systems will be corporate boxes and nobody will be sitting at them to monitor or notice anything, meanwhile a site that offers "last minute" shipping could be taken offline at the...well...last minute, costing them billions in lost sales. $10 mil would be a small price to pay to avoid that.
Question: I'm not too savvy with the intricacies of DNS, but - could an organisation that was threatened with such a blackmail attempt do something like this:
1) duplicate your web infrastructure on a number of different networks /if/ you are attacked, update DNS records to point to your alternate hosting (..repeat as necessary until you run out of sites or they give up)
2) lower the TTL on your DNS records to something more responsive
3)
This is under the assumption that such an attack once launched would be
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For starters it is trivial to embed an HTTP or mail server in a worm and is done all the time. They don't need to be full featured, simply functional enough to get their intended job done. As for the NAT issues the default usernames and passwords for popular routers is common knowledge. Given the number of LINKSYS and 2WIRE WiFi networks I can see from my apartment it's safe to say at least some of those people are still using those defaults. From there it's simply building the appropriate POST or GET reque
Re: (Score:2)
There was a fork of Blaster that installed the patch for the hole it used to spread, then deleted itself. Unfortunately, like Blaster, it had a tendency to crash the Messenger service, which causes Windows to reboot without letting the user interrupt the reboot. The anti-Blaster didn't get very far.
ancient joke (Score:5, Funny)
Windows is same as whores: They both have massive hole and full of viruses.
Botnet, starting to grow (Score:5, Funny)
Do you want a larger, firmer botnet? One that all the ladies will love and other guys will envy? Here's how to enlarge your botnet quickly and easily.
If your botnet stays up for 6 hours or longer, please seek the help of a physician.
Re: (Score:2)
How does one get other guys to envy the size of his botnet? Bust it out during parties and on dance floors? Join a botnet ring? Or just hope that girls will tell other guys about your size? I mean, of your botnet?
Re: (Score:2)
Easy: DDOS competition.
If you can slashdot /., you obviously have a large botnet.
Re:Botnet, starting to grow (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
If you buy a gun, and leave it sitting in your front garden, then some criminals come along, take control of it, and kill everyone in your street, you're kind of responsible for that.
Apart from the obvious killing != spam and/or fraud, how is leaving an unprotected OS with known problems available to be hijacked by anyone who wants to do damage with it any different? You should still be responsible (although the punishment might be different). Suppliers should be forced to make this obvious to people buying this stuff.
Re:Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a computer more like a gun or a rosebush? I guess that depends on whether it is running Windows or Linux.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer to 'Some simple concept' analogies are stupid as hell. Get over your elitism. Most people don't understand the first thing about computers, and they don't have to. Just like most people use a TV, VCR, whatever, without any clue how it works, they just use it to play movies. Blinking 12:00.
Your analogy fails because leaving a gun out is gross negligence. It's a dangerous thing, and that's fairly obvious. A computer isn't. I suppose an argument could be made that computers are dangerous. It would be quite a stretch though. In that case there should be mandatory licensing to operate one, you know... like a car. But there isn't. So, either make the argument that computers are dangerous and should be controlled (and make sure you understand the actual ramifications of that argument), or stfu and realize that no, most people don't understand Computer Security or why it's important, and they never will.
And then, as an expert in the field, learn that you aren't smarter than mom and dad using their computer, you just have a specialized skill set. Most nerd kids like prolly half the slashdot crowd are or were.. started out with computers coming naturally to them. It's easy to assume then that it shoudl come naturally to everyone. And when you see it doesn't, your first reaction is that something is broken in them. After that nerd grows up a bit in the world, that person learns that no... they aren't idiots. We just have an aptitude for something that others don't. And that doesn't make them dumb. They probably have skills we don't. Say... socializing for example. So my guess is your (and all those who always come to slashdot posting the same song and dance) maturity level hasn't quite evolved yet.
And to not be elitist myself... I can admit I was once the same way. I grew out of it, as will you. :)
Parent
use norton (Score:2, Funny)
Everybody, SING ALONG! (Score:4, Funny)
"Botnets, spammer's botnets!
What kind of boxes are on botnets?
Compaq, HP, Dell and Sony, true!
Gateway, Packard Bell, maybe even Asus, too!
Are boxes, found on botnets.
All running Windows, FOO!"
I'm running Mac OS X 10.5.5, here.
Why, yes. I AM a smug bastard!
Thanks for asking.
How Do They Survive? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious - how do infected computers survive on the Internet?
We have legions of honeypots for the detection of infected hosts (not to mention the likes of GMail). ISPs have been qqing about bandwidth - surely bandwidth consumed by infection is the most loathsome waste.
Why don't ISPs have a takedown system? They could restrict who they trust - perhaps only Symantec and McAffee, maybe hotmail, yahoo, and GMail as well. The could do a limited takedown of outbound email only, adding a message to the customer's email account. Perhaps have an HTTP interceptor display a page with links to tools for system cleaning, maybe commercial products if they feel the defense of their corner of the net is not sufficient recompense.
OK, I can dig the risk of inappropriate takedowns - but we run that risk non-stop with the DMCA for a heckuva lot less tangible benefit.
Expense? I'm sure we could get a few dozen folks together to write the software.
Customer experience? Really now - if my Mom's computer was infected and her ISP told her, and gave her links to fix it, she'd love it.
Inability to trust the router droppings? Half the Internet connections in the world are probably covered by a couple dozen ISPs - start with trusting only those router entries.
So - what am I missing?
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
wait, wait, but then you do complain when a patch does not get installed and your system is compromized and it's all MSFT's fault... right, right? Am I right?
What did I win?
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see that you have already been (correctly) moderated as troll.
But anyway, for your information those systems isn't without exploitable bugs either. I would assume that OS X is especially risky since it might have a more standard collection of software and Apple bundles a bunch of security upgrades at the same time instead of sending them out as soon as there is an issue.
I won't say that I'd rather trust Microsoft getting updates out in time than Apple because then I to will be moderated troll but well, le
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont get viruses because I'm not a wintard who opens any FREEREGISTRYSCANNER add they see.
I've been running windows xp without firewalls/AV for like four years now. Every 6 months or so I scan for viruses, rootkits, trojans, and adware, and i've yet to come up with anything.
Well of course if you have a rootkit, scanning for rootkits will show clean. Thats how they work.
A rootkit modifies the kernel so that it intercepts all API calls, including the read() functions your scanner is using, and the rootkit feeds back false info such as directory listings omitting the rootkits files, and if one tries to open one of its files by name, the open() call now controlled by the rootkit returns a no such file error.
You no doubt have a home router that does a form of NAT, which acts as a firewall for all intents and purposes for incoming connections, so your statement about not running a firewall is false.
At least I hope so, else you have been rooted 10 minutes after connecting your computer to the internet. Sadly, your description fits the profile of someone who is infected and doesn't even know it because it has been that way since day one it went online.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, he would have to patch everything within 4 minutes [slashdot.org] to not have an infection.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Rootkits are not undetectable. Though in theory they can be, in practice fully scrubbing the files from all file request APIs can be difficult. Most scanners will use the high-level APIs (which are most likely to be manipulated by rootkits) as well as a low-level API (such as undocumented kernel functions or even direct hard drive access) which is far more difficult for the rootkit to manipulate... then they compare the results of the two scans. Any discrepancies are reported to the user as possible root
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Find out if your credit card number has been stolen on the Internet!
CC # __________________ Expiration date __/__
Dial up users. (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, my father in law is stuck on dialup, and wondered why his computer was so slow. (I hadn't been supporting him previously so I didn't look at his patch status) A quick speedtest (20 minutes later) showed he was downloading at less than a kilobyte per second.
Thats when I noticed it was downloading SP2 every single time he connected to check his mail. It has probably been downloading SP2 since it came out, years prior.
I think he was almost 70% complete with sp2 it probably would have been done in another year of intermittent use, but not before sp3 came out ;)
I now give him service packs on CDs
Parent
Re:Dial up users. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Auto-update is really annoying, especially if you don't have a very good connection. Its one of the first things I disable when I do a fresh install of XP.
Not sure why this was modded funny, as this seems to be far and away the predominant mentality of windows users...
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:4, Interesting)
Except in OS X it downloads the updates and tell you that they are updated, inform you if any of them will require a reboot and let you check the ones not requiring it, all of them and reboot, or not care at all and it won't bother you until next week or something such. (Of if you decide to do it manually)
In XP however it will tell you that they are downloaded and ask you if you want to reboot to install them EVERY FIFTH MINUTE. Even if you tell the OS you don't give a shit and don't want to reboot.
I don't like that OS X installers requiring a reboot remains running until you press reboot in them however. I'd rather just choose "I don't want to reboot now" and have them do their thing the next time I choose to reboot.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know why people complain about Genuine Advantage. If you buy the software it is unlocked. If you pirate it it will still work, even though it knows it is pirated, but it won't work 100%. I.e. pirate copies are partially locked.
Genuine Advantage would be better if they had a sense of humour about it. Like instead of black screening pirate copies [newsfactor.com] they could shrink the desktop slowly surrounded it by a dirty border and have photorealistic DirectX 10 cockroaches in the border. When you unlocked the workstation they'd scatter, but you still see the odd leg or antenna poking out from the edge of the monitor. Every so often one would run across the screen when you were hard at work. Hell, maybe you'd let people crush them with the mouse pointer but it would leave a nasty yellow blob on the screen. The longer you held out against buying a license, the more bold the roaches would become, and the more hit points they would have.
Essentially Microsoft discovered a way to make people RAGE! [imageshack.us] by accident with Clippy [wikipedia.org]. They should put that knowledge to use annoying pirates and making everyone else laugh at them. Most people have a fear of being mocked for being cheap, they should put that fear to use.
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Interesting)
Fully registered and licensed domain of XP machines (~60 or so). Update Windows Genuine Advantage. 58 of them claim to be pirated and cease to work at any level that can be considered acceptable for a corporation.
Stories like that are why people complain about GA.
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On machines that fail WGA, Auto-update functions fine; manually updating from the Microsoft website is disabled.
However, XP's autoupdate is not particularly reliable with service packs. It's more likely to sit in the tray saying "click here to install SP2" than actually install itself, even if the machine is set to "Automatically download and install updates". And users always ignore tray warnings; it's just another bubble between Weatherbug and VirusProtectPro.
Re: (Score:2)
Niche markets have problems getting specialty software updated in a timely manner.
A client in the Veterinary field is still unable to update to XP SP3 because their medical office management software provider told me their product absolutely could not run on SP3.
I thought that the provider was thinking I was trying to upgrade to Vista, but no, SP3 apparently kills their server product.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Idiots (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Informative)
Which this particular patch qualifies as.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
That's not true, systems will still get access to the "recommended" updates as well if Auto-Update is set. I don't understand it myself as the same updates can't be accessed without validating, but they appear fine if you have it set to automatic (and don't use the windows update website).
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Informative)
Auto-update works if you have a legitimate copy of Windows, and there are plenty of people using pirated copies of Windows which do not qualify for the "genuine advantage" required by Windows Update.
If someone is already using a pirated copy of Windows as their desktop OS, then they probably wouldn't have a problem running a pirated copy of Windows 2003, either.
In which case, they can then download Windows Server Update Services [microsoft.com] which doesn't require WGA to download. After installing WSUS on Win2K3, they can configure it to only download updates matching the pirated MS software they have, and then individually approve or reject updates. They would then configure all the systems to retrieve the approved updates from the WSUS server.
By doing this, every update is available, and WGA is never installed on any of the systems.
Parent
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
"Some think they know better what updates to install than Microsoft suggests."
When updates stop breaking other software, and Microsoft stop bundling DRM as 'critical updates', then I suspect people will start trusting Microsoft to tell them what updates to install.
Personally I like to see what Microsoft are doing to my computer before I install it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Three words:
Incompetent IT Department.