Rustock Botnet Responsible For 40% of Spam 250
angry tapir writes "More than 40 percent of the world's spam is coming from a single network of computers that computer security experts continue to battle, according to new statistics from Symantec's MessageLabs' division. The Rustock botnet has shrunk since April, when about 2.5 million computers were infected with its malicious software that sent about 43 billion spam e-mails per day. Much of it is pharmaceutical spam."
Re:Pharmaceutical (Score:5, Informative)
My accounts have been getting more offers of narcotics than genital enlargement in the past few months. Also got a few spams selling antibiotics, which is a new one, and even more reprehensible if they're genuine.
Re:Pharmaceutical (Score:3, Informative)
Why is it worse if they're real? You can buy antibiotics at any vet supply house.... It's not like they're hard to get without a prescription. If they're real, the spam is pretty much noise. If they're not real, then it's bad---people buying something that they think will make them well, only to have it not help them, or worse, poison them....
You forgot your tinfoil hat. (Score:4, Informative)
Companies like Symantec and Norton didn't start off as antivirus companies. They build tools and utilities. If by some miracle all of the botnets, trojans, and virus infections were to vanish from the world, I imagine that they would go back to making tools. It was virus makers that created the market, not Symantec and Norton.
I suppose you think cancer researchers don't really want to find a cure, because then they'd lose their funding, right?
The fact that you are marked as insightful is baffling. You have a distorted sense of reality.
I won't even bother commenting on your "white hats" criticisms, since that's been pretty well covered by others...
However, to say that *your* solution is the only solution is not only short-sighted, it's arrogant. Black Hat "skilz" must be the mystery reason why about half the number of systems are infected now, right?
There isn't a magic bullet solution that will magically fix the problem completely, aside from getting rid of the internet (and maybe humanity too!). It has to be fought on multiple fronts and incorporating multiple solutions to mitigate the problem and hopefully if it's made difficult enough or they have enough that they can lose, then maybe it will stop... but it's much more likely that we're always going to be stuck with it to at least some degree.
Re:Somebody (Score:5, Informative)
I know its "crazy" to think that not everyone knows how to run a bare bones Linux distro and knows how to block all ports except for 80, 8080, and say 21-23. But believe me when I say that the majority of computer users are incredibly inept when it comes to basic computer security.
Grandma will never be a network admin. Neither will your local elementary school teacher. Just because people run Windows out of the box and have no idea they are harboring an orgy of botnets is it fair to call them criminals.
2.5 million Windows computers (Score:3, Informative)
Hm lets see, 2.5 million Windows computers in one botnet agains 0 Linux computers world wide. I would say Dell was right:
"6) Ubuntu is safer than Microsoft Windows: The vast majority of viruses and spyware written by hackers are not designed to target and attack Linux." from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/14/dell_ubuntu_windows_security/ [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Oh PAH-LEEEZE (Score:3, Informative)
There was a /. story not long ago about a white-hat company that utterly destroyed a botnet.
If you're thinking if this story [slashdot.org], it was a research professor, and the botnet was eventually allowed to be retaken.
Re:So how hard.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Somebody (Score:3, Informative)
All the user needs to do is run Linux on a 64 bit machine so they have proper NX. I'd say OSX but it's still got fake ASLR AFAIK. Problem fucking solved. There's no known Linux-based botnets. They don't have to become a firewalling expert, because there's no dangerous services running by default. For most users Linux+Chrome or Linux+FF would provide a superior experience to what they were using before. Too bad no major vendor advertises it on this basis... or adequately