Text 5377, 77 rader
Skriven 2005-06-25 12:50:44 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: An Army of Soulless 1's and 0's
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From: Mike '/m' <mike@barkto.com>

I had no idea it was this bad...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/technology/24zombie.html?pagewanted=1

===
WASHINGTON, June 23 - For thousands of Internet users, the offer seemed all too
alluring: revealing pictures of Jennifer Lopez, available at a mere click of
the mouse.

But the pictures never appeared. The offer was a ruse, and the click downloaded
software code that turned the user's computer into a launching pad for Internet
warfare.

On the instructions of a remote master, the software could deploy an army of
commandeered computers - known as zombies - that simultaneously bombarded a
target Web site with so many requests for pages that it would be impossible for
others to gain access to the site.

And all for the sake of selling a few more sports jerseys.

The facts of the case, as given by law enforcement officials, may seem trivial:
a small-time Internet merchant enlisting a fellow teenager, in exchange for
some sneakers and a watch, to disable the sites of two rivals in the athletic
jersey trade. But the method was far from rare.

Experts say hundreds of thousands of computers each week are being added to the
ranks of zombies, infected with software that makes them susceptible to remote
deployment for a variety of illicit purposes, from overwhelming a Web site with
traffic - a so-called denial-of-service attack - to cracking complicated
security codes. In most instances, the user of a zombie computer is never aware
that it has been commandeered.

The networks of zombie computers are used for a variety of purposes, from
attacking Web sites of companies and government agencies to generating huge
batches of spam e-mail. In some cases, experts say, the spam messages are used
by fraud artists, known as phishers, to try to trick computer users into giving
confidential information, like bank-account passwords and Social Security
numbers.

Officials at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department say their inquiries on the
zombie networks are exposing serious vulnerabilities in the Internet that could
be exploited more widely by saboteurs to bring down Web sites or online
messaging systems. One case under investigation, officials say, may involve as
many as 300,000 zombie computers.

While the use of zombie computers to launch attacks is not new, such episodes
are on the rise, and investigators say they are devoting more resources to such
cases. Many investigations remain confidential, they say, because companies are
hesitant to acknowledge they have been targets, fearful of undermining their
customers' confidence....


More than 170,000 computers every day are being added to the ranks of zombies,
according to Dmitri Alperovitch, a research engineer at CipherTrust, a company
based in Georgia that sells products to make e-mail and messaging safer.

"What this points out is that even though critical infrastructure is fairly
well secured, the real vulnerability of the Internet are those home users that
are individually vulnerable and don't have the knowledge to protect
themselves," Mr. Alperovitch said. "They pose a threat to all the rest of us."

Mr. Alperovitch said that CipherTrust had detected a sharp rise in zombie
computers in recent months, from a daily average of 143,000 newly commandeered
computers in March to 157,000 in April to 172,000 last month.

He said that the increase was attributable to two trends: the rising number of
computers in Asia, particularly China, which do not use software to protect
against zombies and the worldwide proliferation of high-speed Internet
connections....
===

 /m

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