Vulnerability Development mailing list archives

RE: Publishing Nimda Logs


From: "Silcock, Stephen" <stephen_silcock () cleanaway com au>
Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 12:35:14 +1000


I think many people are underestimating the potential for damage these
machines hold...

Eli. K. Breen. put his (small, personal) list of infected hosts on a web
page and posted the address to the list.

I now have as a result a list of about 2000 infected, and therefore
trivially exploitable hosts.  While some may be dynamic IP's and some may
not be as trivially exploitable as it seems; 2000 is a good ballpark figure.

I could; if I had the time and the inclination knock up a DDoS network
within the space of a day or two using that information - 2000 hosts is no
small number.

Add to that any other Nimda lists I can lay my hands on, not to mention the
even-more-trivially exploitable CodeRed backdoored machines and you have a
ready made DDoS network just waiting for someone to use it.

The machines need to be cleaned and set up securely.  If the people running
them can't do it they have no business having an internet connection;
they're a liabiltiy to the rest of the internet community...

Unfortunately there are only two ways I can see this happening; ISP's being
made accountable for allowing these hosts to remain connected, or
compromising the machines and patching/shutting them down in an automated
fashion, which is illegal pretty much everywhere I would assume and probably
not very effective as the machines would probably just be rebuilt or
restored insecurely as before.

So (resisting the urge to rant about Microsoft's buggy mass marketed
bloatware) it comes down to ISP's having to disconnect their own
customers...

My $0.02

S.   :)


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