FBI's Bot Roast II Sees Great Success 129
coondoggie passed us another Network World link, this one discussing the FBI's newest offensive against botnets. They're calling it Operation Bot Roast II. Apparently it's already been quite successful, leading to indictments, search warrants, and the uncovering of some '$20 million in economic loss. writes "Today, botnets are the weapon of choice of cyber criminals. They seek to conceal their criminal activities by using third party computers as vehicles for their crimes. In Bot Roast II, we see the diverse and complex nature of crimes that are being committed through the use of botnets," said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. "Despite this enormous challenge, we will continue to be aggressive in finding those responsible for attempting to exploit unknowing Internet users." I can't help but think, though: how many more of these things are out there that this 'sting' didn't touch?
don't worry about how many... (Score:2, Informative)
Industrial espionage doesn't seem likely, but it is happening already. Those without visible malicious activities or results will go undetected. They are out there in the wild now. No, that is not just tin foil hattery, it is true. There have been a couple of cases of espionage already uncovered and prosecuted. It would have stayed undetected had it not been for human error in the loop.
Imagine a virus that has one goal... to find a computer with your name as a user. Then, with galactic sized patience, waits... deleting one file per week, the oldest
It has stored itself on network drives so that it can re-infect later if needed.
Malicious software is more dangerous than you think, and already this type of software is out there in the wild.
Tools needed to do this (Score:5, Informative)
Assuming that the 'nets were employed to do something blatant (and this is surely not universally the case) you would watch the DDOS or spam attack and see what IP addresses were doing that, then you'd want to go back and see what machines communicated with those machines in the past, and the machines that communicated with those machines. Mining that information should, at some point, lead you to the systems that originated and controlled the attack.
Of course, nobody has that information, right? Nobody can possibly save all the connections between all machines on the internet, certainly not for any length of time...[now is the time to get out your envelopes to do calculations -- I don't think it's by any means impossible to do this.]
If you can't save the whole net, then perhaps you can set probes -- watch internet nexi for IP addresses to go by, once you've identified a few hundred thousand bot-infested machines. Assuming that a bot herder uses machines more than once [another perhaps unsupportable assumption] you could do the same analysis, more slowly, by tracking with these probed addresses as they come across the wire.
I hate botnets, they will destroy the 'net, but I'm not sure that the solution is any better than the problem.
FBI vs. Russian Mafia (Score:2, Informative)
It's too bad they're treating the symptom... (Score:4, Informative)
...but not the disease. So a bunch of botnet-herder script kiddies and other ne'er-do-wells who exploit a situation are in jail. Did they patch even a single one of the compromised Windows systems that were a part of the botnet? No, they "disrupted" the botnets, which supposedly is going to reduce their ability to be compromised for criminal purposes in the future. I'm sorry, but unless they somehow repaired the exploits, or confiscated the compromised machines and thus removed them from the internet, they're still a bunch of junkers spewing malicious packets and waiting for some new bot-herder to take the helm, hazardous to the infrastructure as well as all the other computers they share the "tubes" with.
The fundamental problem is a single-user operating system that had networking capabilities cobbled-on, but that still is set up like a single-user environment where trust and security weren't perceived as issues. I'd like to see Microsoft step-up to the plate and put effort into developing exciting extras to be bundled with security updates that would at least make their users get more motivated about patching. Of course there's more to security than that, but we're all going to have to live with the mess Microsoft has made with pretty much every OS up to (and quite possibly still including) Vista, for years to come. Barring any proactive effort on Microsoft's part, it seems to me like the FBI has some responsibility to track down computers used in crimes and do something just a bit more permanent than just "reducing" their ability to facilitate criminal activity in the future.
Re:Seems like a cool job (Score:5, Informative)
Get to use all your skills? Full stop. Let's review.
This is the government, with everything that comes with it. Those of you with government experience know what this means. Bureaucracy. Red Tape. Paperwork. For those of you who haven't had the experience, think of the most amazingly, monumentally, mind-bogglingly inane busywork paperwork you've ever had to deal with, and then multiply that by the biggest number you can imagine. Keep imagining.
How well does bureaucracy adapt to change and embrace new technology, and all of it's associated skills? Here's a hint. The Bureau is still using Hoover's secretary's original filing system. Yes, it's still manual. Still paper. No changes. The same system. CSI is entertaining fiction.
Other than small numbers of your fellow squad-mates who are also on cyber detail, your fellow agents are likely neo-luddites, mildly intimidated by word-processing. They're very, very bright people, with a lot of skills. Those skills, however, largely don't involve computers. And for the most part, they don't have to. Most areas of the office are air gapped, anyway. (Really, for the most part, they probably don't trust computers -- which, if you think about it, suggests they are pretty bright after all -- but they're probably not entirely sure they trust someone who spends too much time with them either. Put in enough time on the range, working out, knocking on doors, pounding pavement, and using your head to show you have a clue and you won't get them killed, and then you'll be okay. But not before.)
As for your primary prey, it will not be spammers. It will not be botnet operators. It will not be industrial spies. You will not for the most part, young padawan, be matching your jedi skills against the very best the dark side has to offer.
You will be chasing kiddie porn peddlars, and child molesters. You will be pretending to be 12-year-old girls in chat rooms. When you're doing well, you will be knocking on doors at 5 am, having to spend countless hours reviewing video tape collections to see what has been taped somewhere in the middle of those 400 episodes of 'the golden girls', or all of those Richard Simmons videos. When you find it, you will have to catalog it. (You will learn to be grateful for the fast-forward button on your remote. And you will see things you wish you could unsee.)
If you're a badge-carrying Special Agent, yes, you're armed. "How cool, is that!", you say. You're armed whenever you're on duty, wherever you go. It's a Federal License. Those pesky little state limitations on firearms don't apply.
Add one little detail. You're on call 24x7x365. Which means you have to be able to report for duty at any time, with no advance warning. Which means you're armed -- all the time. No breaks. No holidays. No days off without a sidearm. (Ponder this: where do you put your piece if you want to go to the beach?)
Pay? For a rough rule of thumb calculation, take your current salary in your technical field. Divide by 2 to 2.5. The greater your technical skills the larger the number you'll divide by. You don't get paid based upon your skill set. You get paid based upon your grade. Which is dependent upon time in chair, once you're actually in. Unless you're former law enforcement, former military, or worked for a different governmental agency, in which case you'll start at a higher grade than someone without that background. (Though not necessarily at your previous grade, either.)
Hours? Standard base is a 50 hour week. Unless you're needed for anything else, in which case it may be more. For a lot of tech folks, 50 hours is no big deal, you think. But, here's the kicker. Your morning will usually start at 5 am, in order to get to the office by 7 am. Unless you're knocking on someone's door, in which case you're probably up by 3 am. Or you're on stake out, in which case you're working whatever you're working. (If you're early, you're o