Botnet takedown

[Doctor Q]

I found the article Botnet takedown may yield valuable data interesting and promising.

We know that large-scale spammers rely on millions of infected computers, almost all of them Windows PCs, which do the slave work of sending spam email, and that they control those armies of PCs using multiple command-and-control servers that can be issued commands to start spam campaigns as well as denial of service attacks.

Anti-spam researchers found some of these servers, got them shut down, and most importantly got access to their content. They are studying how they are used in detail.

One benefit is that the "good guys" now have a list of infected PCs. Working through the Internet Service Providers to which those PCs are connected, they can notify the people whose computers were victimized and help them clean up their computers.

Good news for our side!

 

[Hellhammer]

Lets just hope they stay on the good side. That list is worth fairly much so I wouldn't be surprised if they sold it on the blackmarket

 

[Doctor Q]

That list is worth fairly much so I wouldn't be surprised if they sold it on the blackmarket

That's true, like the list of people who fell for an Internet scam. That's valuable because such people are reportedly likely to fall for new scams based on claiming to help victims of Internet scams.

 

[Queso]

The lists will still be in the hands of the black-hats unfortunately. Ever so often the good guys take a step forward, but where there's that much profit to be made the spammers will once again leap ahead.

The game never really changes, but the pendulum does swing.