'Botnets': A Cybervillain's Weapon of Choice
As your computer sits at home in your living room, criminals may be using it for their own sinister purposes. It might sound like science fiction, but it actually happens.
In fact, hackers like to create entire networks of computers they've taken over, usually without the owners' knowledge. FBI Director Robert Mueller warned against these networks, known as "botnets," in a speech at Penn State this week, calling them the "Swiss Army knives of cybercrime. You name it, they can do it, from attacking networks, sending spam and collecting data, to infecting computers and injecting spyware."
To create the botnets, hackers use virus and worm attacks to put software on PCs that connect back to a server. The hacker can then use the server to send instructions to the compromised computers, called "zombies."
And there are literally millions of computers in the United States and around the world that have become zombies, says Shawn Henry, deputy assistant director of the FBI Cyber Division. "These things have exponentially increased the ability of criminals and others to do harm," he told me.
The hunt for the people behind these networks is a "cat-and-mouse game," Henry says. Cybercriminals can often switch IP addresses quickly, from zombie machine to zombie machine, making them hard to track. The FBI relies on cooperation from businesses, government officials and universities to track them down, find their main servers and block them. (Henry and his team, working with their partners, have found more than a million infected computers and shut down several bot operations since June.)
The bureau also works to help businesses and universities, which are particularly vulnerable because they have large amounts of sensitive economic and research data, ward off attacks. The FBI has set up the InfraGard program, which allows private-sector participants to swap information about threats to their computers and how they were stopped on a secure server. It also helps universities deploy more safeguards for sensitive data.
But even with these alliances and increased security, Henry says, it's always a struggle: "Offense always outpaces the defense in the cyberworld."
5:20 PM ET | 11- 8-2007 | permalink
