02-22-2008, 01:24 AM
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WMG Sheriff
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 281
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The fight against home computer hijackers being waged online
Quote:
On 11th February a US teenager who used the online nickname of "Sobe" pleaded guilty to delinquency charges resulting from his surreptitious installation of adware on hundreds of thousands of computers.
The computers "Sobe" used had been hi-jacked and co-opted into a network of computers called a "botnet".
Botnets are networks of computers which have been subverted by malicious code so they fall under the control of cyber criminals.
Typically owners of machines forming a botnet do not know their computer has been hijacked. Home users account for 95% of all attacks mounted by botnet, according to figures from security firm Symantec.
Talking to the BBC, Shawn Henry, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division said botnets were the "Swiss army knife" for cyber crime.
Botnets are mostly used to send spam and harvest private data from infected machines but they can also be used to deluge websites with data to knock them offline, host phishing sites and other illegal content.
Nick Truman, BT's head of customer internet security, said the inventive criminals were finding many more uses for botnets. He said: "There really is no limit to what a 'good' botnet is capable of. They make easy money for the controller and are in huge demand."
International conflicts can also be waged with a botnet. The dispute between Estonia and Russia showed their potential use in attacks on important assets.
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Read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7256501.stm |
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