Fergie's Tech Blog

Shadowboxing With a Bot Herder

Brian Krebs writes on Security Fix:

Security Fix had an interesting online conversation Tuesday night with a hacker who controls a vast, distributed network of hacked Microsoft Windows computers, also known as a "botnet."

I went into the interview knowing very little about this individual, other than his online alter ego, "Witlog," and that he has infected close to 30,000 Windows PCs with his computer worm, which he claims is powered by code that he downloaded from a Web site, modified slightly, and set loose on the 'Net. I came away from the interview no more knowledgeable about his background, age, location or motivation, but perhaps with a stark reminder of how just a little bit of knowledge can be such a dangerous thing.

Witlog claims he doesn't use his botnet for illegal purposes, only "for fun." I found that claim pretty hard to believe given a) the income he could make installing ad-serving software on each computer under his control, combined with b) the risk he is taking of getting caught breaking into so many computers. The kid I wrote about in the Post magazine story on the connection between botnets and spyware was making $6,000 to $10,000 per month installing adware on a botnet half the size of the one Witlog claims to have.

posted by Fergie @ 3/09/2006 10:31:00 AM