[gui-talk] Windows security, something to worry about (fwd)
Joel Deutsch
jdeutsch at dslextreme.com
Sat Jan 24 06:02:02 UTC 2009
Huh? I don't get this.
----- Original Message -----
From: "tribble" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Windows security, something to worry about (fwd)
ah, sorry about the repost I sent a minute ago -- but it's important to be
cautious.
--le
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel Deutsch" <jdeutsch at dslextreme.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 9:46 AM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Windows security, something to worry about (fwd)
Irony alert, please. Thanks.
if accuracy of writing and editing are any gauge of whether news releases
are real or bogus, there's this to consider:
"If you're looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese
ships steaming toward us on the horizon," said
Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer
security consulting firm based in San Francisco.
I wasn't yet born on that day that President Roosevelt said would live in
infamy. But what was unexpectedly and swiftly approaching on the horizon
that fateful morning was a lethal massing of the Japanese air force, who
would, within moments, begin bombing and strafing U.S. ships in the attack
that brought this country into World War II. So this is like saying "if
you're looking for a 9/11, this is the al Qaeda fleet steaming into New
York harbor."
Now, this pretty egregious slip-up could be no more than a sign of faltering
U.S. public education. Or of one man's serious learning and/or memory
deficits. Or a mistake made in the hysteria of a moment. Or,as I said, lack
of an editor to review the article before allowing that line to go out
uncorrected.
But one way or another, something may be fishy. One never knows, does one.
End irony alert. May our Windows operating systems, MS updates and
well-maintained antivirus applications protect us well, now and evermore.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Will Smith" <wilsmith at iglou.com>
To: "Multiple recipients of NFBnet GUI-TALK Mailing List"
<gui-talk at NFBnet.org>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 6:09 AM
Subject: [gui-talk] Windows security, something to worry about (fwd)
This article appears in today's New York Times, and it is one more examples
of
why I use windows sparingly and do not enjoy or trust computing when using
any
flavor of windows. Be careful when computing with this operating system!
Will
wilsmith at iglou.com
Worm Infects Millions of Computers Worldwide
By [7]JOHN MARKOFF
A new digital plague has hit the Internet, infecting millions of
personal and business computers in what seems to be the first step of a
multistage attack. The world's leading computer security experts do not
yet know who programmed the infection, or what the next stage will be.
In recent weeks a worm, a malicious software program, has swept through
corporate, educational and public computer networks around the world.
Known as Conficker or Downadup, it is spread by a recently discovered
[8]Microsoft Windows vulnerability, by guessing network passwords and
by hand-carried consumer gadgets like USB keys.
Experts say it is the worst infection since the Slammer worm exploded
through the Internet in January 2003, and it may have infected as many
as nine million personal computers around the world.
Worms like Conficker not only ricochet around the Internet at lightning
speed, they harness infected computers into unified systems called
botnets, which can then accept programming instructions from their
clandestine masters. "If you're looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we
now have the Japanese ships steaming toward us on the horizon," said
Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer
security consulting firm based in San Francisco.
Many computer users may not notice that their machines have been
infected, and computer security researchers said they were waiting for
the instructions to materialize, to determine what impact the botnet
will have on PC users. It might operate in the background, using the
infected computer to send spam or infect other computers, or it might
steal the PC user's personal information.
"I don't know why people aren't more afraid of these programs," said
Merrick L. Furst, a computer scientist at [9]Georgia Tech. "This is
like having a mole in your organization that can do things like send
out any information it finds on machines it infects."
Microsoft rushed an emergency patch to defend the Windows operating
systems against this vulnerability in October, yet the worm has
continued to spread even as the level of warnings has grown in recent
weeks.
Earlier this week, security researchers at Qualys, a Silicon Valley
security firm, estimated that about 30 percent of Windows-based
computers attached to the Internet remain vulnerable to infection
because they have not been updated with the patch, despite the fact
that it was made available in October. The firm's estimate is based on
a survey of nine million Internet addresses.
Security researchers said the success of Conficker was due in part to
lax security practices by both companies and individuals, who
frequently do not immediately install updates.
A Microsoft executive defended the company's security update service,
saying there is no single solution to the malware problem.
"I do believe the updating strategy is working," said George
Stathakopoulos, general manager for Microsoft's Security Engineering
and Communications group. But he added that organizations must focus on
everything from timely updates to password security.
"It's all about defense in depth," Mr. Stathakopoulos said.
Alfred Huger, vice president of development at [10]Symantec's security
response division, said, "This is a really well-written worm." He said
security companies were still racing to try to unlock all of its
secrets.
Unraveling the program has been particularly challenging because it
comes with encryption mechanisms that hide its internal workings from
those seeking to disable it.
Most security firms have updated their programs to detect and eradicate
the software, and a variety of companies offer specialized software
programs for detecting and removing it.
The program uses an elaborate shell-game-style technique to permit
someone to command it remotely. Each day it generates a new list of 250
domain names. Instructions from any one of these domain names would be
obeyed. To control the botnet, an attacker would need only to register
a single domain to send instructions to the botnet globally, greatly
complicating the task of law enforcement and security companies trying
to intervene and block the activation of the botnet.
Computer security researchers expect that within days or weeks the
bot-herder who controls the programs will send out commands to force
the botnet to perform some as yet unknown illegal activity.
Several computer security firms said that although Conficker appeared
to have been written from scratch, it had parallels to the work of a
suspected Eastern European criminal gang that has profited by sending
programs known as "scareware" to personal computers that seem to warn
users of an infection and ask for credit card numbers to pay for bogus
antivirus software that actually further infects their computer.
One intriguing clue left by the malware authors is that the first
version of the program checked to see if the computer had a Ukrainian
keyboard layout. If it found it had such a keyboard, it would not
infect the machine, according to Phillip Porras, a security
investigator at SRI International who has disassembled the program to
determine how it functioned.
The worm has reignited a debate inside the computer security community
over the possibility of eradicating the program before it is used by
sending out instructions to the botnet that provide users with an alert
that their machines have been infected.
"Yes, we are working on it, as are many others," said one botnet
researcher who spoke on the grounds that he not be identified because
of his plan. "Yes, it's illegal, but so was [11]Rosa Parks sitting in
the front of the bus."
This idea of stopping the program in its tracks before it has the
ability to do damage was challenged by many in the computer security
community.
"It's a really bad idea," said Michael Argast, a security analyst at
Sophos, a British computer security firm. "The ethics of this haven't
changed in 20 years, because the reality is that you can cause just as
many problems as you solve."
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