Fergie's Tech Blog

'Fast-Flux' Foils Botnet Takedowns

Robert Lemos writes on SecurityFocus:

Network security analyst Lawrence Baldwin has helped take down his share of bot nets, but he worries that those days may largely be over.

Traditional bot nets have used Internet relay chat (IRC) servers to control each of the compromised PCs, or bots, but the central IRC server is also a weakness, giving defenders a single server to target and take down. An increasingly popular technique, known as fast-flux domain name service (DNS), allows bot nets to use a multitude of servers to hide a key host or to create a highly-available control network. The result: No single point of weakness on which defenders can focus their efforts.

Last month, two significant online threats -- the Storm Worm and a recent MySpace Web virus -- became the latest malicious programs to incorporate fast-flux hosting into their infrastructure. A recent Storm Worm infection, for example, connected to a bot net that had more than 2,000 redundant hosts spread amongst 384 providers in more than 50 countries, said analyst Baldwin, who is the chief forensics officer for myNetWatchman.com.

More here.

Note: I'm very happy to see this issue getting more attention...

posted by Fergie @ 7/09/2007 04:23:00 PM