Criminals Prefer Firefox, Opera Web Browsers 172
An anonymous reader writes "Security researchers at Purewire have leveraged vulnerabilities in malware infrastructure to track the criminals behind it. In a three-month long project, they used security flaws in exploit kits to get operators to expose themselves (Obnoxious interstitial ad between link and content) when they access the kits' admin control panels. Data collected shows that 50% of those tracked use Firefox, while 25% use Opera."
Public Exposure (Score:4, Funny)
I am not sure that I would have liked seeing the operators expose themselves.
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So the story is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
crim.. *cough* technically inclined people tend to use firefox and opera rather than IE.
Shocking!
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The more advanced use telnet.
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Where's "LWP", "wget", "curl", "fetch", or even lynx? These are supposed to be technically savvy criminals, right?
Re:So the story is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it a moment. (Score:5, Insightful)
A better reading could be "people that exploit vulnerabilities of browsers prefer to not use those vulnerable browsers".
In particular:
"People who create websites containing malware that takes over the browsing computer NEED to use a browser that is immune to their own takeover tools for their command-and-control console."
Jeez. Think about it a moment. How the heck are they going to work on the thing if it eats their machine when they touch it?
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Sadly, no [google.com]
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A better reading could be "people that exploit vulnerabilities of browsers prefer to not use those vulnerable browsers". Not sure how much technically inclined they are (not sure if there are a black market of plug-and-exploit-for-dummies kits), but they are aware of how much damage can be done to whoever (including them) using those vulnerable browsers.
Wow! Deja vu anyone? Let's delve deeper.
A better reading could be "people that exploit vulnerabilities of browsers prefer to not use those vulnerable browsers". Not sure how much technically inclined they are (not sure if there are a black market of plug-and-exploit-for-dummies kits), but they are aware of how much damage can be done to whoever (including them) using those vulnerable browsers.
...
Sadly, no [google.com]
Wait something's not right. Hey the first link actually uses the quoted text. Someone better mod parent down, sheesh.
A better reading could be "people that exploit vulnerabilities of browsers prefer to not use those vulnerable browsers". Not sure how much technically inclined they are (not sure if there are a black market of plug-and-exploit-for-dummies kits), but they are aware of how much damage can be done to whoever (including them) using those vulnerable browsers.
Wait a minute... What's happening here?...
*downscroll*
Nooooooooooo!
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Oh, don't do that!!! I'm laughing my ass off here, and you KNOW how hard it is to screw the damned thing back on!!
Re:So the story is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Close. Hackers know better than to use IE for all the obvious reasons nobody else should use it.
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Probably has something to do with this?
Does that make me a criminal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer Opera myself - does that now incriminate me? Or does it merely show that these criminals are security conscientious and knows that using IE on the type of websites they probably frequent would be like throwing stones at bees nests?
They did neglect to mention the most frequently used operating system. If it's equally divided between Linux, OS X and Windows it'd be hard for Internet Explorer to get beyond 33% to begin with.
Re:Does that make me a criminal? (Score:5, Insightful)
The classic difference between correlation and causation.
Also, people who think about security much use secure browsers! Think of the children!
Re:Does that make me a criminal? (Score:5, Funny)
What article? I only read the comments.
Obvious (Score:2)
This is obvious. People implementing malware and running botnets are going to be more technically capable than most. The more technically capable you are, the more likely it is you'll use Firefox or Opera. No big deal.
What do you mean? (Score:3, Funny)
Is it the mouse-clicking or the keyboard-typing that requires more technical capability while using Firefox or Opera rather than IE?
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It's simply being aware of alternatives. If you know what a browser is, and that you have a choice of browser, you're well ahead of the average internet user.
Re:What do you mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it the mouse-clicking or the keyboard-typing that requires more technical capability while using Firefox or Opera rather than IE?
Knowing about them.
Re:What do you mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one knows better than a scumbag malware distributor how to protect themselves online.
Re:What do you mean? (Score:5, Interesting)
Less than a minute? Wow! That's almost as fast as the four seconds it takes in my browser!
I've always been fascinated by the fact that disabling scripting in FireFox requires a plugin. In Opera, all you do is click a checkbox in a drop-down menu (or to do it per-site, a checkbox in a dialog window). The same goes for enabling/disabling plugins, applets, sound, cookies, animated images, popups (actually a set of radio buttons and not a checkbox), proxy servers, and sending referer information. It seems to me to be an excessive amount of work to have to install additional software just to get basic security features.
And yes, I'm an Opera fanboy. ;-)
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Disabling scripting in FF does NOT require a plugin.
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Okay, then since I don't use FF, I'm honestly confused as to the utility of NoScript, if it's possible to disable scripting without it. Elucidate?
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Me too.
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Okay, then since I don't use FF, I'm honestly confused as to the utility of NoScript, if it's possible to disable scripting without it. Elucidate?
NoScript allows you to turn off scripting in general, but to allow it for specific sites. By default, with NoScript turned on, no Javascript is executed, but there's an icon in the status bar that will allow you to allow this site, or a portion of this site, to execute scripts, either temporarily or permanently, and when you change the permissions it automatically reloads the affected page elements.
It also does things like blocking cross-site scripting attacks, even when you are allowing a site to execut
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Ah, right then, it's like a multi-tool verus a claw hammer.
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Well then, as I said before, that's a standard feature in Opera.
Re:What do you mean? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually you can at least when i used IE years ago, turn off the scripts. In fact, you can tell it to allow just scripts to run on certain pages but not others. On firefox? Cant do it without the plugin! Furthermore, IEs feature is a part of a security profiles feature which included a huge number of site features you could turn off, including many others like cookies. You would create a series of profiles, and then establish certain settings in that profile, then add websites to the profile. You could therefore control multiple things through the profiles. Cant do it with firefox. The noscript only covers js, so if you wanted to block cookies as well, youd have to create a completely seperate database of sites.
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While NoScript may only work with scripts, they're the most fundamental cause of mali
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Plugins and cookies are a huge problem. Cookies are a major privacy concern, and plugins well just depends on how much you trust the external plugin. Given that the js engine is loaded with security problems, its likely that java and flash are too. You really just want to block all of this out by default and allow certain websites to run them as needed. My policy would be to havea default security profile that allows no cookies, no plugins and no js, and then allow only certain websites to run the js. Javas
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Plugins and cookies are a huge problem. Cookies are a major privacy concern, and plugins well just depends on how much you trust the external plugin.
NoScript blocks plugins as well, including Java, Flash, Silverlight, etc. And it blocks XSS attacks, even for pages you are allowing to run JS.
It doesn't block cookies, but there are other tools for that. And cookies aren't really that significant anyway, especially if you disable third-party cookies and configure FF to lose them every time the browser is closed.
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You eventually have to trust someone, somewhere. Be it MS or the individual responsible for NoScript. Schneier wrote an interesting piece [schneier.com] on countering "trusting trust."
Likely that Flash is to? There have been far more zero day exploits in Flash than have been present in Mozilla's JS engine that were widely and actively exploited. Worse, Ad
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This was by design. Everything which could be moved to a plugin was. Of course, some things have slipped back into the browser, but the idea was to cut down the bloat.
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Turning off scripts, plugins, and cookies is NON OPTIONAL. That its not including by default in firefox really shows a lack of concern for encouraging people to follow good security practices. Plus as I said, you need to block not only scripts, but plugins and cookies too! Its better to do this with a security profiles feature, and to allow websites to be added to one of many security profiles. i mean, IE of all things had these features. 10 years ago. And firefox doesnt. Thats defective by design. Its real
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Not surprising... (Score:3, Insightful)
This just means that malware writers understand that Internet Explorer has more vulnerabilities to exploit, so they don't use it themselves.
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If I had mod points, you'd be going down...
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The same, but different. No. Really. One was saying "IE has more vulnerabilities." The other was saying "FF and Opera do not have the specific vulnerability they are exploiting." Not the same thing in the long-term.
Difference between preference and need. (Score:2)
I read the partent posting as "They're using these browsers because they understand the risks and prefer a less vulnerable browser."
My reply was intended to be "Actually, it's they have a specific NEED to be immune to the attacks as part of their operation: Their own malware would break them if they don't use a browser that's immune to it."
That's a very significant difference: Between preference and inherent requirement. TFA and many of the comments here are talking about preference, as if the malware au
Bad Numbers in Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the article says 46% Firefox and 26% Opera. Did the submitter really need to round the numbers for the article summary, when more accurate numbers would be more meaningful?
If it was really 50%/25%, I'd suspect a low sample size, i.e. 1 IE user, 2 Firefox users, and 1 Opera user.
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What? All in the same group? Thats a bit harsh on the suicidal maniacs out there don't yathink?
I think a better summery stat would have been that "of the top 3 browsers, over 70% of malware writers steer clear of IE".
Also, anyone wonder if the remaining 28% or so of IE users are using it just to test their exploits?
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46% Firefox and 26% Opera could just as well mean 23 Firefox users and 13 Opera users.
And what's this anyway about using percent? Let's all start using parts per million! :)
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Actually the article says 46% Firefox and 26% Opera. Did the submitter really need to round the numbers for the article summary, when more accurate numbers would be more meaningful?
If it was really 50%/25%, I'd suspect a low sample size, i.e. 1 IE user, 2 Firefox users, and 1 Opera user.
Roughly 79.365 % of statistical references contain serious flaws.
If their uncertainty would be +- 5%, they should round their numbers to reflect that (50% and 25%). Alternatively they could say "(46 +- 5)%"
Your heuristic is faulty, it is a human flaw often exploited by marketeers and politicians. If they price an item at 236 instead of 200 or 250, you have the impression that it must be a very competitive price, not something they chose arbitrarily.
First-hand experience (Score:5, Funny)
The guy who took the phone off my lap on the train uses Firefox as well. Right?
What's next, golfers prefer cars that cost more than $100,000?
Give me a break.
Re:First-hand experience (Score:5, Funny)
Brilliant comment; car analogy, sports reference, syntactically and logically correct. Extra points for engaging both the downtrodden masses and the wealthy ("Hey, I play golf, and I drive a Bentley! This guy is a genius!")
Missing the Point (Score:2)
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I have to ask, why are you using Firefox and Chrome at the same time? I could see Firefox and IE if the latter were open for an IE-only site, though those who know use IE Tab [mozilla.org] with Firefox. But Firefox and Chrome??
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Gotta love statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this article even mean?
Tech savvy IT security enthusiasts prefer alternative browsers to Internet Explorer?
Criminals prefer Firefox?
Firefox users have criminal tendancies?
Firefox encourages exploitation of inferior browsers?
Or, Internet Explorer sucks.
What.
Re:Gotta love statistics (Score:4, Insightful)
> What does this article even mean?
People who write exploits know how to prevent themselves from getting exploited? (i.e. Don't use IE.)
Of course, it's not as simple as merely choosing a good browser, but that's a starting place.
Re:Gotta love statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this article even mean?
Easy: This article means that this set of computer criminals primarily uses Firefox and Opera.
The problem with statistics isn't with statistics, it's with people drawing conclusions unsupported by the statistics.
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Eerrrr... Duh? lol
Seriously, that's what facts are for. Proving things. They don't HAVE a use beyond that. Well, winning on Jeopardy, I suppose.
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Not since about season 9, no. Oh well.
Re:Gotta love statistics (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gotta love statistics (Score:4, Funny)
Criminals use firefox. Firefox turns its users into criminals. Dont want to be a criminal? Switch back to IE and be a good person!
Fireofx is that good (Score:3, Informative)
Obvious (Score:2)
Dubious logic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly, Opera, which by some measures has only a 2 per cent market share, ranked second among the kit operators, with 26 per cent. "I think that's probably because operators have a familiarity with the web threat landscape," Royal told The Register, suggesting that many black-hat hackers take a security-through-obscurity approach to making sure they themselves don't get hit. "It makes them wary of using mainstream browsers."
Huh, and here I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, these hackers knew the security history of the various browsers and knew that Opera had a better security history than Internet Explorer?
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An alternative conclusion could be, since Opera rules the market share in countries that use the cyrillic alphabet, most criminals are from Eastern Europe and Russia.
Still dubious logic, but hey, it's as good as the author's dubious logic!
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Obnoxious intersitial ad? (Score:3, Insightful)
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That may be so, but do you really think the value of that extra click is worth anything from a /. reader with this mindset. Next thing you know you'll be suggesting they should follow some of the ad links on the site, or buy some of the site's affiliate's products. This may even be enforced by having your affiliates track when each user visits their site or fills out some survey. Nevertheless, no matter what you do, people who believe that the web should be free will continue to believe so.
There's also a gr
Maybe so (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm reminded of an old observation: whenever ice cream sales rise, so do shark attacks. So does eating ice cream cause sharks to attack you? No.
The observation that more Criminals prefer Firefox over IE, doesn't associate Firefox use with criminal behavior.
It most likely just means that there is a common occurence that causes technically savvy computer users to prefer Firefox.
People who build malware infrastructure are technically savvy, otherwise, they would not be able to understand and defeat technical security measures.
Non-technically savvy users often use IE because they don't understand the alternatives.
Also, they don't understand the weaknesses in IE's security defenses, the technical advantages of using Firefox (or Chrome) over IE, or the basic security principle that installing and using less-popular software (alternatives to the most popular option) means there are fewer people interested in devising a way to attack your software.
Eg Opera is not a very ripe target that hackers are highly interested in attacking, because it has so few users, it's a low value target.
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So what do you mean? World wide ice cream sales correlate to world wide shark attacks? Country level? State level? Not city level obviously.
And what time frame?
It's obviously not true for arbitrary geographic areas. And it's obviously not true for long term time frames - sharks attacks have gone down since 2000, I doubt world wide ice cream sales have.
Yes they are very likely correlated, but that is completely different than claiming that "whenever" ice cream sales increase so do shark attacks. 2000 compare
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2000 has the highest number of shark attacks in the data set you gave. Hence every year since 2000 had had a lower number of shark attacks that 2000.
That obviously does not mean the trend is down, it just means there's an outlier data point.
It does mean if we compare 2000 to any year afterwards for ice cream sales and find that ice cream sales are higher than we have a case in which ice cream sales have increased but shark attacks have not.
That ice cream sales fell in 2009, during a major recession, does no
What will come of this "news"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Akin to this previous
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Hilariously, that story was just as hyperbolic as the idea cops would harass people for using firefox. That kid was a accused of trafficking in stolen goods among many other things, I believe the fact that he used a CLI just was an example of his technical competence.
I love the comments on... (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep it in perspective... (Score:2)
How many firefox/opera users are criminals? Probably a tiny, tiny percentage. Unless you count copyright violation, in which case everyone is guilty.
Re:Keep it in perspective... (Score:5, Informative)
> Unless you count copyright violation, in which case everyone is guilty.
Not true. In any case, copyright infringement is rarely a crime, at least in the USA.
So what is the IE %? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank you for that report Captain Obvious (Score:2)
like any 733t H@ck3r would use Internet Explorer, and risk being kicked out of their group.
Did you check to see if they were even using Windows? Chances are if not then IE isn't even available to them, but Firefox and Opera are. Maybe that is because Firefox and Opera are cross platform and IE isn't (except for a Mac OSX port that is fugly, but then why install IE for OSX when Safari is way better?) available on Linux, BSD Unix, etc.
opera in russia (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised Opera isn't more represented, given the number of Russian cyber-crimminals. Opera is quite widely used in Russia. Opera once did a random street sampling in the eastern bloc after Google's video of asking people "What is a browser" in New York Square (to which people replied "Google" or "Yahoo" etc). They found most people knew what it was and majority used Opera:
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2009/06/25/what-is-a-browser-russian-edition [opera.com]
Which goes to show, those technically minded use Opera, which helps support my claims it is the better browser (for IT guys at least)
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> Google's video of asking people "What is a browser" in New York Square (to
> which people replied "Google" or "Yahoo" etc).
When the correct answer, of course, is "An animal that browses, such as a goat or deer."
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Also from that link is these stats:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-RU-monthly-200901-200906 [statcounter.com]
as you can see, in Soviet Russia, Opera browses you.
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I'm a big fan of Firefox and prefer it to Opera, but I'm glad it's around. I once saw a forum thread somewhere about why the world needs Opera - to which someone replied: "so Firefox has somewhere to steal features from".
Many peope in Russia use Opera... (Score:2)
Not saying that all Russians are criminals, but there's a big population there, and yes there are many cybercriminals.... this might explain somewhat the Opera numbers.
Duh (Score:2)
No really? Probably they don't want their precious botnets be taken over and used "by proxy" (in both senses, actually...).
I call BS (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
Not representative (Score:2)
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And you think it's not representative only for Opera...why exactly?
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The fact that people who run drive-by exploit sites use Opera or Firefox didn't surprise me much, I just wish they'd picked a larger sample group
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OK, that's better - it's just that your first post named the story like it's presenting, on flawed method, supposedly huge popularity of Opera (accidentally, that might be somewhat correct - Opera has 40% in Russia, not much less in Ukraine; still, methodology is bogus)
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I've always wondered this (Score:2, Interesting)
In Other News... (Score:2)
Years ago... (Score:2)
...a guy by the name of Massad Ayoob wrote a book called "The Truth About Self-Protection." (http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Self-Protection/dp/0553195190) I recommend it highly, as one of the things he did was go over to the local prison and ask career criminals how they would go about protecting themselves from the same sort of people.
It's quite instructive.
And In Other News (Score:2)
Criminals prefer cars to bicycles. Some even prefer the internet to the telephone. Most importantly they prefer the night to the day, as they are seedy folk after all.
Re:frist psot (Score:4, Insightful)
Data collected shows that 50% of those tracked use Firefox, while 25% use Opera
Let me guess, they tracked 4 operators?
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Maybe they're the same 4 guys that China just busted for pirating...
Re:frist psot (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's make asses of ourselves, and assume that the percentages would hold in larger samples. What would that tell us? Hmmmmmm. Maybe hackers know that FF and Opera are safer browsers than IE? Well, one has to ask, "Who would know better than a hacker?"
Alright, we've been asses long enough. Shitcan the silly assumption....
Same with Opera (Score:2)
You think that only FF can turn of js...why exactly?