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<span style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: bold;
color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial;
line-height: 110%;">OPLIN 4Cast #202: The
Business of Bots</span><br>
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<span style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal;
color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-style: italic;
font-family: arial;">November 3rd, 2010</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><a title="Random
robot clipart. from
[http://www.awesomeclipartforkids.com/cat.cfm?cat=Robots&sec=General
Awesomeclipartforkids.com]. Stated on site as
free/public domain.
[http://www.awesomeclipartforkids.com/about.cfm]"
href="http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Robot18.gif"><img
class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1437"
style="margin-right: 5px;" title="Robot"
src="cid:part2.09050808.07020303@oplin.org"
alt="robot" height="86" width="61"></a><span
style="font-size: 16px; font-family: arial;
line-height: 110%;">Now that we've left
Cybersecurity Awareness Month behind us
(October, but you might not have seen it on your
calendar) as well as the barrage of robot calls
that always precedes an election, it seems like
a good time to catch up on the news from the
world of <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet">botnets</a>,
the pesky tools of cyber criminals that can take
control of public PCs and turn them into bot
zombies under the control of nasty people. We're
not trying to give you a post-Halloween scare—if
you keep your security software up to date you
should be OK—we just thought it's interesting
how similar the criminal botnet business is to
many other online business ventures. </span></p>
<div> </div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="text-align: justify; font-size: 16px;
font-family: arial; line-height: 110%;"><a
href="http://www.securityweek.com/rise-small-botnet">The
rise of the small botnet</a> (Security
Week/Ram Mohan) "Today, would-be criminals can
choose to buy the latest version of kits such as
ZeuS, or even ready-made botnets, for as little
as $2,500, which is not a large sum when you
consider that the potential rewards could
quickly add up to tens or even hundreds of
thousands of dollars. Cracked versions of such
tools are sometimes made available for free,
which has caused some toolkit developers to add
DRM protections to their software. Indeed, this
industry has even taken advantage of the ease
and scalability of cloud-based business models
allowing customers to 'rent' their fully hosted
botnet solutions for as little as $60 a day."</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; font-size: 16px;
font-family: arial; line-height: 110%;"><a
href="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/BotnetBotnet-for-Sale-Business-Going-Strong-Security-Researchers-Say848696/">Botnet
for sale business going strong</a>
(eWeek/Brian Prince) "In the cyber-underground,
botnet victims are a form of currency, Gunter
Ollmann, vice president of research at Damballa,
told eWEEK. A particular management tool may
cost $500 to purchase but could be traded for
4,000 bot victims in the U.K., for example. The
hurdles to building a botnet are so low now 'any
man and his dog can get started in this
business,' he said."</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; font-size: 16px;
font-family: arial; line-height: 110%;"><a
href="http://blog.seculert.com/2010/10/iranian-cyber-army-strikes-back.html">The
"Iranian Cyber Army" strikes back</a>
(Seculert Research Lab) "There are numerous
different exploit kits being sold in underground
forums among cyber criminals. Competition in
this crowded and lucrative market is driving
authors to create exploit kits with sleek and
sexy user interfaces, so the product will be
more attractive to potential customers."</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; font-size: 16px;
font-family: arial; line-height: 110%;"><a
href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/japan-has-a-national-botnet-fighter-wheres-ours.ars">Japan
has national botnet warriors</a> (Ars
Technica/Matthew Lasar) "Cyber Clean does the
usual good stuff, trying to raise public
awareness about the dangers of bots. [...] But
the Cyber Clean operation goes a massive step
further than public education. It searches for
bot-infected PCs, then engages in a series of
'attention rousing activities' to get the user
to realize that her computer has been hijacked."</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: left;"> </div>
<p style="text-align: left; font-size: 20px;
font-family: arial; line-height: 110%;"><small><strong><em>Japan
Fact:</em></strong></small><br>
</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; font-size: 16px;
font-family: arial; line-height: 110%;">The .jp
(Japan) Internet domain is one of the world's <a
href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_worlds_most_dangerous_domains.php">safest
domains</a>, ranking only behind .edu and
.travel for lack of threats from malware, browser
exploits, spam, aggressive pop-ups, and suspicious
affiliations. </div>
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