What the Heck are Botnets?

"A botnet is comparable to compulsory military service for windows boxes" - Stromberg (http://project.honeynet.org/papers/bots/)

Botnets are networks of computers that hackers have infected and grouped together under their control to propagate viruses, send illegal spam, and carry out attacks that cause web sites to crash.

What makes botnets exceedingly bad is the difficulty in tracing them back to their creators as well as the ever-increasing use of them in extortion schemes. How are they used in extortion schemes? Imagine someone sending you messages to either pay up or see your web site crash. This scenario is starting to replay itself over and over again.

Botnets can consist of thousands of compromised machines. With such a large network, botnets can use Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) as a method to cause mayhem and chaos. For example a small botnet with only 500 bots can bring corporate web sites to there knees by using the combined bandwidth of all the computers to overwhelm corporate systems and thereby cause the web site to appear offline.

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service on January 19, 2006, quotes Kevin Hogan, senior manager for Symantec Security Response, in his article "Botnets shrinking in size, harder to trace", Hogan says "extortion schemes have emerged backed by the muscle of botnets, and hackers are also renting the use of armadas of computers for illegal purposes through advertisements on the Web."

One well-known technique to combat botnets is a honeypot. Honeypots help discover how attackers infiltrate systems. A Honeypot is essentially a set of resources that one intends to be compromised in order to study how the hackers break the system. Unpatched Windows 2000 or XP machines make great honeypots given the ease with which one can take over such systems.

A great site to read up on this topic more is The Honeynet Project (http://project.honeynet.org) which describes its own site's objective as "To learn the tools, tactics and motives involved in computer and network attacks, and share the lessons learned."

What are Intrusion Detection Systems?

Intrusion Detection System (IDS) are a necessary part of any strategy for enterprise security. What are Intrusion Detection systems? CERIAS, The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, defines it this way:

"The purpose of an intrusion detection system (or IDS) is to detect unauthorized access or misuse of a computer system. Intrusion detection systems are kind of like burglar alarms for computers. They sound alarms and sometimes even take corrective action when an intruder or abuser is detected. Many different intrusion detection systems have been developed but the detection schemes generally fall into one of two categories, anomaly detection or misuse detection. Anomaly detectors look for behavior that deviates from normal system use. Misuse detectors look for behavior that matches a known attack scenario. A great deal of time and effort has been invested in intrusion detection, and this list provides links to many sites that discuss some of these efforts"(http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/about/history/coast_resources/intrusion_detection/)

There is a sub-category of intrusion detection systems called network intrusion detection systems (NIDS). These systems monitors packets on the network wire and looks for suspicious activity. Network intrusion detection systems can monitor many computers at a time over a network, while other intrusion detection systems may monitor only one.

Who is breaking into your system?

One common misconception of software hackers is that it is usually people outside your network who break into your systems and cause mayhem. The reality, especially for corporate workers, is that insiders can and usually do cause the majority of security breaches. Insiders often impersonate people with more privileges then themselves to gain access to sensitive information.

How do intruders break into your system?

The simplest and easiest way to break in is to let someone have physical access to a system. Despite the best of efforts, it is often impossible to stop someone once they have physical access to a machine. Also, if someone has an account on a system already, at a low permission level, another way to break in is to use tricks of the trade to be granted higher-level privileges through holes in your system. Finally, there are many ways to gain access to systems even if one is working remotely. Remote intrusion techniques have become harder and more complex to fight.

How does one stop intrusions?

There are several Freeware/shareware Intrusion Detection Systems as well as commercial intrusion detection systems.

Open Source Intrusion Detection Systems

Below are a few of the open source intrusion detection systems:

AIDE (http://sourceforge.net/projects/aide) Self-described as "AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) is a free replacement for Tripwire. It does the same things as the semi-free Tripwire and more. There are other free replacements available so why build a new one? All the other replacements do not achieve the level of Tripwire. And I wanted a program that would exceed the limitations of Tripwire."

File System Saint (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fss) - Self-described as, "File System Saint is a lightweight host-based intrusion detection system with primary focus on speed and ease of use."

Snort (www.snort.org) Self-described as "Snort® is an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system utilizing a rule-driven language, which combines the benefits of signature, protocol and anomaly based inspection methods. With millions of downloads to date, Snort is the most widely deployed intrusion detection and prevention technology worldwide and has become the de facto standard for the industry."

Commercial Intrusion Detection Systems

If you are looking for Commercial Intrusion Detection Systems, here are a few of these as well:

Tripwire

http://www.tripwire.com

Touch Technology Inc (POLYCENTER Security Intrusion Detector)

Http://www.ttinet.com

Internet Security Systems (Real Secure Server Sensor)

http://www.iss.net

eEye Digital Security (SecureIIS Web Server Protection)

http://www.eeye.com

Just what is Intelligent Explorer? For your safety, you really need to know

I recently hit, by mistake, what I thought was an Explorer upgrade option. It turned out to be a pop-up appearing legitimate but really was not. It uploaded a product called Intelligent Explorer on my machine. What a nightmare!

I did some research on the web and found messages like this one from a BullGuard Antivirus Forum,

"PLEASE HELP!!! I HAVE A SPYWARE, TROJAN AND HIJACKER ON MY COMPUTER. I HAVE RUN BULLGUARD, CWSHREDDER AND AD-AWARE. ALL HAVE PICKED UP THE VIRUSES AND SAID THAT THEY HAVE BEEN MOVED/REMOVED BUT WHEN I LOG ONTO THE INTERNET THAT DAMN INTELLIGENT EXPLORER TOOLBAR IS SHOWING"

Another message from spywareinfo Forum goes something like this:

"Hey I'm having issues with something called Internet explorer toolbar - Intelligent explorer. I can’t find a way to remove it from my comp and I really don’t want to reinstall windows. I've used spybot, ad-ware, and cw shredder but nothing seems to work."

It appears that Intelligent Explorer allows other software to be downloaded to your machine and this is where the problem occurs. What is even more remarkable is that by downloading Intelligent Explorer, their license grants them the right to install software add-ins on your computer at their will. Take a look at what the software license for Intelligent Explore says (go to http://www.ieplugin.com/terms.html to read it all):

"You grant to us the right, exercisable by us until you uninstall the Software or this agreement is otherwise terminated, to provide to you the Service of downloading and causing to be displayed advertising material on your computer, through ‘pop-up’ or other display while you use your browser. You acknowledge and agree that installation of the Software may automatically modify toolbars and other settings of your browser. By installing the Software you agree to such modifications."

The company, IBC incorporated, is incorporated in Belize. I really can't believe this license!

One end user found highly objectionable pop-up advertisements generated by this software bundled with Intelligent Explorer in the form of extreme pornography.

I have yet to break this.

Intelligent Explorer is a plug-in, which can create a new home page, as well as start up and endless loop of pop-ups. You can remove the view bar, but then starting up Internet Explorer will cause it to reappear. I asked some friends to help, and no one could tell me what to do.

This is what I did:

I bought a copy of a program called XoftSpy and it removed the software. It took two scans and a reboot to do it. This is not an advertisement for this product. They advertised it was free, which it was to run, but then I had to buy it to actually fix anything. It cost me $40 and I am sure that there are freeware products out there as well, but that is what ended the nightmare for me. Other spyware products I have seen out there include spybot, NoAdware, Spyware Eliminator, Pal Spyware Remover, and Spyware C.O.P.

Let the buyer beware!

Website Security Rules of the Road

In 2004, online consumer spending was at a record $65.1 billion. More and more people are attracted to the ease of online shopping and are spending higher amounts. Unfortunately, the chances of becoming a victim of Internet fraud are also increasing. The Internet National Fraud Center Watch reported that the average loss to fraud victims for just the first six months of 2005 was $2,579. This is compared to the $895 average for all of 2004. Complaints relating to general merchandise purchases (goods never received or misrepresented) accounted for 30% of Internet fraud complaints, and auction purchases (goods never received or misrepresented) topped the list at 44%.

While many e-commerce Websites are reputable and have taken the necessary safety precautions to protect you, it never hurts to always proceed cautiously. If you are making an online purchase consider these easy steps:

1. Use only one credit card, preferably with a low credit limit, when making online purchases. Avoid using an ATM or debit card.

2. Be wary of unsolicited offers by sellers. The Internet National Fraud Information Center Watch reported that email, as a method of contact by Internet scammers was up 22% in 2004.While the offer may be legitimate, spammers like to use this tactic to side-step reputable sites that provide consumer protection for online purchases.

3. Use only reputable e-commerce websites that list a street address and telephone number in case you need to contact them directly.

4. Read the website’s privacy policy. Some websites may reserve the right to sell/give your information to a third party. Check the document to see if they allow an opportunity to “opt-out” of receiving special offers from third-party vendors or for permission to share your personal information.

5. Check for a lock symbol in the status bar at the bottom of your Web browser window. Also, do not provide your personal information if the website address doesn’t start with “https” (a sign that the site is using a secure server).

6. Choose only verified sellers. Check to see if the vendor is a verified member of a reputable third party such as the Better Business Bureau, VeriSign, or Guardian eCommerce. These third-party sites help to ensure online consumers will be protected when shopping or conducting e-commerce transactions.

7. Check that the delivery date posted is reasonable. If you have not dealt with the vendor on a regular basis, be wary of any Website that states the shipment will be delayed 20 or more days. Delivery dates of 7-10 days are more common.

8. Keep a paper trail of all online transactions. Print out a hard copy of the transaction and keep it in a file for future reference.

9. Be wary of website offers that just sound too good to be true. The Internet is littered with get rich quick scams and false advertising claims. Investigate all claims thoroughly before proceeding.

10. If you do not receive what you paid for, and the vendor will not return your emails or calls, contact your state’s Department of Consumer Affairs for further assistance.