Posted on 01/07/2007 6:56:27 PM PST by Huntress
NEW YORK, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Computer code writers in Europe are the chief suspects in the creation of programs that turn other computers into zombie-like slaves for Internet crimes.
Computer experts in Eastern Europe and elsewhere are likely behind the newest computer crime plaguing the Internet, which has turned innocent users into unwitting participants and left security experts stumped, The New York Times reported.
By inserting small programs into others computers, electronic criminals can harness the collective power of multiple computers to commit more elaborate online crimes.
"It's the perfect crime, both low-risk and high-profit," computer security researcher Gadi Evron said. "The war to make the Internet safe was lost long ago, and we need to figure out what to do now."
While some zombie computer crimes have been linked to computers running Linux or Macintosh operating systems, officials have warned that Windows systems are the most susceptible.
Security experts have been unable to defend against such crimes, but some products and services are available to improve online security, the newspaper said.
Is UPI trying to say that Sub7 and programs like it are something new?
Gotta love those 'owned' Windows machines.
How is it they cite Macintosh among the target computers? Have you heard of this?
"This sounds like the plot of a latter day Ed Wood movie."
Plan 0 From Cyberspace....right?
I don't think things get better until software gets better on the net side. People on average will not protect theselves.
"Gotta love those 'owned' Windows machines."
As apple gets a little more popular you will see more viruses targeting them. They have plenty of insecurities and havent addressed them.
Not a very helpful article. No real details at all.
Viruses and security vulnerabilities are two different beasts.
This is not really new. What is new revolves around the higher number of home computers connected to broadband. The worst offenders are those who connect their computer directly to the DSL or cable modem. These folks are putting a routable (visible) IP address right out there, and without some really strong firewall action, the computer is much easier to compromise.
A consumer grade router (linksys, dlink, etc) placed between the modem and the computer, with the default settings on the router changed is a good first step in combatting this. Additionally, most broadband providers offer a security suite with antivirus and firewall protection. This is a good thing.
Windows is susceptable because it is "feature rich," there is so many boxes out there runnig the OS, and so many folks running it stock.
"Viruses and security vulnerabilities are two different beasts."
Sure they are, doesn't change my point.
It does when you consider there aren't many, if any, viruses for OS X. The thing's been out for, what, six years? You'd think by now someone would've written a few just for the sake of saying it's possible.
"It does when you consider there aren't many, if any, viruses for OS X. The thing's been out for, what, six years?"
There aren't many viruses out there for unix based OS's of which Apple is one. And yes its been out for a while and still have a small fraction the number of users that Microsoft XP has.
"You'd think by now someone would've written a few just for the sake of saying it's possible."
They are out there, just not enough apple users to have them actually spread.
That may be, but the biggest security hole of most systems is the people who are managing them, or lack thereof.
Doesn't everybody pretty much know this? Talk about a non-story.
25 million machines running OS X isn't enough to tempt a virus writer to at least try? If you say so.
A few years ago I wrote several Internet components for Borland's compliers. Delphi is their Windows complier and Kylix is their Linux compiler.
The current Mac operating system is a version of Berkley Linux. It uses the standard Linux code to access the Internet.
It was easy to learn how Linux accesses the 'net. I just down loaded the open source Berkley Code and read it.
But windows is not open source.. I was faced with the problem of how to reverse engineer Windows Internet access code. By regular means that would take a lot of time and effort. What I decided to do first was try the Linux code compiled for Windows to see what happened. I did it on a whim. I did not really think it would work.
To my surprise it turned out the only difference between the Linux code and the Windows code was the Linux module contained the data structure used while the Windows code required the address of the data structure be passed to the Internet access code. The functions were the same code, took the same arguments, and were in the same order in the complied code. It turned out Microsoft had purchased the right to use the Berkley Linux code in Windows.
Both Delphi and Kylix use the same code for internet access components. The only difference is in Kylix the code passes the data to the functions and Delphi only passes the address of the data.
Thus the bugs that allow unauthorized Internet access to Windows machines will also allow unauthorizede access to the Mac and Linux machines.
But Macs and Linux have only a small percentage of the market. Macs have less than 3 percent. So hackers have had little reason to attack Macs or Linux machines.
Recently, as windows has become more robust and Microsoft has fixed more and more bugs, there have been successful attacks on both Mac and Linux machines.
Macs and Linux machines are not superior. There are so few Mac and Linux machines that few hackers have bothered to attack them.
That is likely to change in the future.
"25 million machines running OS X isn't enough to tempt a virus writer to at least try? If you say so"
Source for that number?
According to this story the number is in the thousands ( 12,000 )
http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2004/09/on_why_the_macs_small_populati.html
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