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25% of PCs are botnet infected
Author: Wil HarrisPublished: 26th January 2007
The tubes are getting clogged by botnets, says Vint Cerf.
Vint Cerf, widely regarded as the one of the 'fathers of the internet' for his work on the TCP/IP protocol, made the guesstimate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, yesterday. He said that, of the 600 million PCs that are connected to the internet, around 150m were connected up to a botnet - almost all of them without their owners having a clue what is going on.
The rise of botnets has come about through internet malware, and the revenue which can be generated by using CPU cycles and internet connections. Computers connected to a botnet can be remote controlled, then used to send out spam email and participate in DDoS attacks. Both of these functions can be re-sold by the botnet controller to a buyer eager to make use of the seedier side of the net.
Will Windows Vista put a halt to this? The world can but hope, as better security on the internet, touted by Microsoft in Vista, will hopefully prevent more PCs getting infected - but we won't hold out too much hope.
Given the massive readership of bit-tech, statistics suggest that at least some of you must be unwittingly running botnet software. When was the last time you checked? Let us know over in the forums.
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Comments (26)Stats: 0.051 seconds
That number is quite high, a bit worrying when you think about it.
your solution to anything *ware is formating ?!
kinda backs up the statistic when people think fixing a problem is better than preventing it :(
Yeah well at least it doesn't back up the statistic of people having a malware infected computer! I was having a similar discussion yesterday with specofdust and my argument is that you can never be too sure with malware/virii these days they're getting more and more complex and can hide quite well, I feel safer just formatting the lot and having piece of mind. Plus a good ol format keeps things running smooth ;)
As ChromeX says, a format helps to keep thing running better too. My install must be atleast 6 months to a year old now and it's starting to run pretty badly, which reminds me; it must be time for a re-install :)
It's pretty sad though that its possible that so many machines are infected due to essentially people just not knowing what they are getting themselves into/running as an admin account all the time or other similar security breaches.
I could only hope that none of my family are suffering from it but it's people like my dad who are likley to be the cause of such issues, he called me up lastnight because the "virus checker was slowing the system down so I un-installed it and the problem went away", yet it was AVG which is totally un-obtrousive and was functioning fine after I installed it and was playing with the system.
Some people never learn :(
1. Antivirus and Antispyware realtime scanning.
2. Be careful where you go on the web.
3. Registry scan at least once a week or after installing/uninstalling anything. (I find it to be the biggest reason for a slowing down machine)
4. Virus and spyware scan once a week at least. (I'm sometimes a bit lazy here and do it once a fortnite, done no harm here)
5. Keep things tidy, delete files you don't need, delete shortcuts that aren't needed etc.
6. Reformat once every 6 months to 1 year.
7. For those confident enough (most on here) use nLite to get rid of most c**p in windows (movie maker, outlook, drivers for endless devices, games, fax etc.) before starting.
Dunno if that actually helps someone, but meh.
..Do you even know what a botnet is?
I also make sure not to go on dodgy pr0n sites...
When I get a new intel mac and install windows on it for testing websites, i'm gonna have it strictly fire-walled so it can only access the domains I specifiy.
1.) Not using outlook
2.) Not using IE
3.) Being behind a NAT device. (that trusty router that keeps me online)
4.) Don't click on weird stuff.
It just so happens that I'm better of without any antivirus this way.
OC, in a don't-try-this-at-home way my parents place as well as my brother's notebook have got installed some antivir :) (would never trust them with esp. 4 :D )
I actually almost died from laughter! There's no greater risk to PC security than a 15 yr old female sister!
As opposed to a male sister :D
Symantec Ghost... or similar. Make an image after a clean install, and when you reapply it after a malware infestation, the computer is none the wiser. Unless of course you use the sysprep option to run the mini-install after ghosting. But you only need that in the one image, dozens of computers scenario.
meh.. I was just thinking the same thing
Of course a hardware firewall (as well as Windows built in one) also helps. :)
This is the result of making computers user friendly for the masses, masses of people using computer who aren't competent to do so.
My priority is patching, 100%, if there is a new hotfix for XP, its on my machine (assuming it warrants it; and i have to look at them all for work anyway)
If your machine is patched, you can be connected to the internet, and not worry about anything getting though, even without a firewall. (assuming a secure password)
I also have a smoothwall install on a crap machine acting as my router which offers a firewall, and SNORT (along with other features, but these are really the most relevant)
Firewall supports uPnP, so utorrent is setup for random ports.
MS windows XP firewall disabled, though i feel that it is the best firewall out there (assuming you keep your machine patched, and know how to safely browse websites; if you are a beginner at computers, the windows firewall won't cut it though)
I usually don't bother with AV or anti-spyware programs.
Everything important is done on the actual XP install (e-mail, C++ dev, web dev, gaming, schoolwork, simple/safe web browsing)
anything else i feel would clutter my main OS will be done in a VMWare instance, so that if anything gets messed up, its a 2 minute process to clean up.
once said shady program has either proved to me that I like it enough to put on my computer, or use it enough to warrant putting it on my actual OS install, I will then copy it over.
downloading torrents and such will be done on the main computer, unless the file is really sketchy. From my personal experience, torrents are extremely safe, and I have never gotten infected from running a movie/music/app/game that was grabbed from torrents.
Stoopid malware, why do people have to be so mean?
ABSOLUTELY!! I did a format on Wednesday or there abouts all because of my stupid sister was visiting stupid sites and downloading all sorts of garbage. And yet im the one who mum falls out with because I wont give her the password but when I do she passes it onto my sister! :(
I also don't use antivirus software because it's usually a major performance hog and hinders my computers responsivenessss. (And i know i can easilly get away with out one)
But my parents computers on the other hand.....
My little sisters and brothers go on them, download stuff, go to dodgy sites, install what ever they like. Then my mom always calls me! Same story every time.
Here is how I keep my PC safe:
1. Linux, Log out and exit the GUI when I leave my PC
2. Dont let family use my PC
If your machine is patched and up to date AND doesn't have any other progrms installed on it then its safer than if it weren't patched.
However, MS isn't the fastest at patching security holes and this is a very reactive rather than proactive approach.
Blaster worm anyone?
Its basic function is to allow any software on your PC to configure the router to forward ports to itself.
So utorrent uses a random port, lovely.
Then any *ware on your machine that wants to call home or open ports for it to join a botnet just tells the router to forward the malicious traffic through your router which would normally keep you safe.
Most routers don't even show you any forwarding rules set up by uPNP so you can check for anything suspicious.
The whole point of firewalls and port-forwarding is that you control what traffic is allowed into your network.
Allowing ANY software running on ANY machine on your network to configure this defeats the point.
Its just another example of PCs and associated hardware being 'dumbed-down' for the masses at the expense of security. :(
Unless they have that thing where they say they need a 'codec' to run and try to get you to run an .exe from a dodgy IP.
Or the old metafile hole that allowed specially crafted images to run code. :D
But I agree that on the whole, torrents seem to be 'quite' safe.
Personally I'd never run any .exe file gotten from torrents/P2P/Warez sites though.
Then I found and used NOD32 and never looked back.
I don't know its even running unless it finds a virus and prompts me for actions.
I didn't know it worked until I backup up a friend's HDD to mine and it found heaps of virus loaded files in amongst his stuff.
I find that Firefox (with NoScript extension) and Thunderbird, NOD32, XP firewall, a NAT router and a little common (or not so common) sense goes a very long way to securing a machine.
Something that takes over your pc to use it as a distributing hub for spyware, junkmail etc........... I think.
I was simply replying to others talking about security in general.
sorry it took so long to reply, don't check bit much on weekends.