funsec mailing list archives

Re: Botmaster: Invasion of the Computer Snatchers


From: "Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 02:34:41 GMT

I'm just the messaenger, of sorts. :-)

I kind of have a 'no nonsense' approach to this -- by day,
I try to get 'em locked up -- not glorify or mystify 'em.

- ferg



-- "Thomas C. Greene" <thomas.greene () theregister co uk> wrote:
Jeez, i thought this 'phear the skr1pt k1d33' drivel had gone mercifully 
out of fashion in the last millennium.

chrz,
t.


Fergie wrote:
Brian Krebs writes in The Washington Post (for Sunday, February 19,
2006; Page W10):

[snip]

In the six hours between crashing into bed and rolling out of it, the 21-year-old hacker has broken into nearly 2,000 
personal computers around the globe. He slept while software he wrote scoured the Internet for vulnerable computers 
and infected them with viruses that turned them into slaves.

Now, with the smoke of his day's first Marlboro curling across the living room of his parents' brick rambler, the 
hacker known online as "0x80" (pronounced X-eighty) plops his wiry frame into a tan, weathered couch, sets his new 
laptop on the coffee table and punches in a series of commands. At his behest, the commandeered PCs will begin 
downloading and installing software that will bombard their users with advertisements for pornographic Web sites. 
After the installation, 0x80 orders the machines to search the Internet for other potential victims.

The young hacker, who has agreed to be interviewed only if he isn't identified by name or home town, takes a deep 
drag of his smoke and leans back against the couch to exhale. He smiles. This is his day job, and his work is 
finished in less than two minutes. In two weeks, he will receive a $300 check from one of the online marketing 
companies that pays him for his services.

[snip]

More here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021401342.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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