Cyber Warfare, Not Just a Theory Anymore?

Last week, the news of a cyber attack by Russia against Georgia made this type of warfare become a chilling reality. According to an article in the LA Times, it also revealed how ill-prepared most of the world is to deal with this new threat.

Most of the experts now agree that cyber attacks started well before lead started flying and were not very sophisticated by current standards. Most of the attacks were run of the mill DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) type events designed to deface and shut down government sites.

One of the problems is that no one can actually pin the attacks to the Russians. As usual, botnets of zombie computers were used to facilitate the assault on the sites in question. Since these zombie computers are taken over by malicious software -- normally after an unsuspecting user clicks on a link in a spam e-mail -- the computers used in the attack probably resided in locations all over the world. Botnets are also used to send out the spam e-mails with the malicious links that turn systems into what are known as zombie computers, which add to the power of the botnet.

Researchers at Shadowserver, a volunteer group monitoring cyber attacks, have traced the attacks against Georgia as starting in July and being based out of the United States, according to an article in the New York Times. The Times article suggested that there might be ties in this attack to Russian organized cyber criminals.

It should be noted that the words Russia and cyber crime bring up pages of results on most search engines. Russian organized crime is also known to have a global reach so it is no surprise that some of the current DDOS attacks were traced to a server in the United States. Simply stated, these attacks can be made to appear as if they are coming from just about anywhere.

While this is one the first times cyber warfare has actually occurred, it's starting to become a topic of concern in government circles. As a matter of fact, in April it was a hot topic at the NATO summit and an EU conference. China is also known to be actively seeking a cyber warfare capability and gets accused of hacking into other government's websites all the time.

Last year, Estonia suffered cyber attacks, which were allegedly facilitated by Russian Hackers, also. In an interesting development, Network World reported that they are sending cyber defense advisors to assist the Georgians.

Wikipedia has an interesting article (Wiki) on cyber warfare. It cites that McAfee stated in their 2007 annual report that approximately 120 countries have been developing cyber warfare capabilities designed to disrupt financial markets, government computer systems and utilities. The article also lists several examples of attacks, which many suspect were facilitated by the Russians or the Chinese, that have recently occurred.

The McAfee report surmised that cyber attack capabilities are becoming a global issue as well as a threat to national security. Current events seem to be making that prediction turn into reality.

Scientology taken on by anon hackers

There seems to be a growing controversy with Scientology recently. Not sure why, it didn't exactly appear on the scene yesterday. Besides that most of us are supposed to believe in "freedom of religion."

Well .... I guess the word "most" doesn't necessarily mean "all?"

A lot of people seem to be harmed in the name of religion! When this occurs there seems to be a lot of disagreement on what the "word" actually is.

I try to be one of those people, who believes in freedom of religion so I'm not going to come to any conclusions in this post and merely document the phenomenon.

The most recent twist to the public focus on Scientology is that "anonymous" hackers reportedly shut down their site with a DDOS attack.

CNet (Robert Vamosi) did an interesting article about the conflict this anonymous group has with the Scientologists.

In it he writes:

A group of vigilantes--calling themselves Anonymous, or Anon--are escalating their attacks against the Church of Scientology in what they consider to be Internet censorship by issuing new video challenges.

The CNet article reference a YouTube video posted by this anon group (still up and running).

The article references a website called "Project Chanology," which appears not to be accessible at the present time. I wonder if the Scientology folks counterattacked?

Interestingly enough, I checked and the Scientology.org is up and running as of this writing.

Undaunted I did a little more digging and found a decent "Wikipedia" write-up on Project Chanology, here.

Here is a snippet from Wikipedia on the latest attack by Anon:

Calling the action by the Church of Scientology a form of Internet censorship, a series of DDoS attacks against Scientology websites, prank calls, and black faxes to Scientology centers were organized. They call for this to continue until they have "total and complete destruction of the present form of the Church of Scientology". Members of "Anonymous" were directed via a web site set up for the group to download denial of service software in order to take down the website Scientology.org.

According to the Wiki, a lot of the recent focus on this started after the unauthorized biography on Tom Cruise was published and the "Church" threatened YouTube with a lawsuit over a video showing "a manic-looking Cruise who gushes about his appreciation of Scientology."

Of course, I can remember Tom gushing on Oprah's couch over Katie in what some would consider a manic manner, also. Maybe gushing in a manic manner is part of his personality?

As a disclaimer, I know a lot of guys who have done a little manic gushing over a woman they were in love with. The difference probably is that most of them never get a chance to do it on the Oprah show.

Here is the latest YouTube video from Project Chanology:

Operation Bot Roast II snares bot herders, worldwide!

Official FBI photo for Bot Roast II (Globe in a laptop)

This morning I read that a teenager in New Zealand had been arrested for allegedly being the kingpin behind an international cyber-crime network.

Because he was a juvenile when the crimes were being committed, the authorities aren't releasing his real name, but on the Internet he is known as "AKILL."

The Associated Press is reporting:

Police arrested the suspected teenage kingpin of an international cyber crime network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers and skimming millions of dollars from victims' bank accounts, officials said.

Working with the FBI and police in the Netherlands, New Zealand police arrested the 18-year-old in the North Island city of Hamilton, said Martin Kleintjes, head of the police electronic crime center. The suspect's name was not immediately available.

Kleintjes charged that the ring was responsible for stealing at least $20 million using bank account and login details detected by their illegal spyware.

I decided to do a little digging on this and the FBI announced on their site that this is part of Operation Bot Roast II.

It appears that more than a teenager is being taken down for victimizing millions of people, worldwide.

From the announcement on the FBI site:

In June, we announced the first phase of Operation Bot Roast, which pinpointed more than a million victimized computers and charged a number of individuals around the country with various cyber-related crimes.

Today, we’re announcing part two of this operation, with more results:

Three new indictments, including two this past month. In one case, we uncovered a denial of service attack on a major university in the Philadelphia area and then knocked out much of the botnet by disrupting its ability to talk to other computers.

Two previously charged criminals who pled guilty, including a California man who is a well known member of the botnet underground.

The sentencing of three others, including a pair of men who launched a major phishing scheme targeting a Midwest bank that led to millions of dollars in losses.

I discovered more information on Operation Bot Roast II in a FBI press release:

The FBI today announced the results of the second phase of its continuing investigation into a growing and serious problem involving criminal use of botnets. Since Operation 'Bot Roast' was announced last June, eight individuals have been indicted, pled guilty, or been sentenced for crimes related to botnet activity. Additionally, 13 search warrants were served in the U.S. and by overseas law enforcement partners in connection with this operation. This ongoing investigative effort has thus far uncovered more than $20 million in economic loss and more than one million victim computers.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III said, "Today, botnets are the weapon of choice of cyber criminals. They seek to conceal their criminal activities by using third party computers as vehicles for their crimes. In Bot Roast II, we see the diverse and complex nature of crimes that are being committed through the use of botnets. Despite this enormous challenge, we will continue to be aggressive in finding those responsible for attempting to exploit unknowing Internet users."

The press release also has detail on the most current arrests:

1. Ryan Brett Goldstein, 21, of Ambler, Pennsylvania, was indicted on 11/01/07 by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for botnet related activity which caused a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack at a major Philadelphia area university. In the midst of this investigation the FBI was able to neutralize a vast portion of the criminal botnet by disrupting the botnet's ability to communicate with other botnets. In doing so, it reduced the risk for infected computers to facilitate further criminal activity. This investigation continues as more individuals are being sought.

2. Adam Sweaney, 27, of Tacoma, Washington, pled guilty on September 24, 2007 in U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, to a one count felony violation for conspiracy fraud and related activity in connection with computers. He conspired with others to send tens of thousands of email messages during a one-year period. In addition, Sweaney surreptitiously gained control of hundreds of thousands of bot controlled computers. Sweaney would then lease the capabilities of the compromised computers to others who launched spam and DDoS attacks.

3. Robert Matthew Bentley of Panama City, Florida, was indicted on 11/27/07 by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Florida for his involvement in botnet related activity involving coding and adware schemes. This investigation is being conducted by the U.S. Secret Service.

4. Alexander Dmitriyevich Paskalov, 38, multiple U.S. addresses, was sentenced on 10/12/2007 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida, and received 42 months in prison for his participation in a significant and complex phishing scheme that targeted a major financial institution in the Midwest and resulted in multi-million dollar losses.

5. Azizbek Takhirovich Mamadjanov, 21, residing in Florida, was sentenced in June 2007 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida, to 24 months in prison for his part in the same Midwest bank phishing scheme as Paskalov. Paskalov established a bogus company and then opened accounts in the names of the bogus company. The phishing scheme in which Paskolov and Mamadjanov participated targeted other businesses and electronically transferred substantial sums of money into their bogus business accounts. Immigrations Customs Enforcement, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the Panama City Beach Police Department were active partners in this investigation.

6. John Schiefer, 26, of Los Angeles, California, agreed to plead guilty on 11/8/2007 in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, to a four felony count criminal information. A well-known member of the botnet underground, Schiefer used malicious software to intercept Internet communications, steal usernames and passwords, and defraud legitimate businesses. Schiefer transferred compromised communications and usernames and passwords and also used them to fraudulently purchase goods for himself. This case was the first time in the U.S. that someone has been charged under the federal wiretap statute for conduct related to botnets.

7. Gregory King, 21, of Fairfield, California, was indicted on 9/27/2007 by a federal grand jury in the Central District of California on four counts of transmission of code to cause damage to a protected computer. King allegedly conducted DDoS attacks against various companies including a web based company designed to combat phishing and malware.

8. Jason Michael Downey, 24, of Dry Ridge, Kentucky, was sentenced on 10/23/2007 in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, to 12 months in prison followed by probation, restitution, and community service for operating a large botnet that conducted numerous DDoS attacks that resulted in substantial damages. Downey operated Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network Rizon. Downey stated that most of the attacks he committed were on other IRC networks or on the people that operated them. Downey's targets of DDoS often resided on shared servers which contained other customer's data. As a result of DDoS to his target, innocent customers residing on the same physical server also fell victim to his attacks. One victim confirmed financial damages of $19,500 as a result of the DDoS attacks.

Recently, I did a post, Botnet owner faces 60 years in prison and a $1.75 million fine, which is about about John Schiefer (above).

The amount of damage bot herders have caused millions of people on the Internet is astounding. Even when you consider the amount of spam, the average Internet user has to deal with on a daily basis, these current arrests are good news for the Internet community. Spam is the vehicle in which most scams, misleading advertising and counterfeit goods are spread in the electronic world.

The FBI press release mentioned some great resources where the average person can learn how to avoid becoming the victim of a bot herder.

In closing, I would like to pass them on:

http://www.fbi.gov/
http://www.onguardonline.gov/
http://www.lookstoogoodtobetrue.com/
http://www.uscert.gov/
http://www.ic3.gov/

One not mentioned that is great (my opinion) is http://www.fakechecks.org/. A lot of the scams involving counterfeit checks start with a spam e-mail AND most spam is spread using botnets.

AP article on New Zealand teenage bot herder, here.

FBI press release on Bot Roast II, here.

Anti scammers under attack by Storm botnet

I happened to be checking out the Artists Against 419 site (one of my favorites) and discovered that the site is under a pretty nasty DDOS attack.

But apparently, it doesn't stop there. I found this on SlashDot written by capnkr and posted by CowboyNeal:

"It looks like the efforts of the anti-scammers at sites like 419eater, Scamwarners, Artists Against 419, and possibly others have become the target of the Storm botnet. Spamnation has a post about it, and as of this writing none of the above listed sites are responding. Spamnation reports that CastleCops and other anti-spam forums are being DDoSed as well.

Sounds like a massive, concerted effort against the folks who are fighting the good fight. Although I hate it for the owners and admins of the above sites, I think it shows without a doubt that their efforts to 'get back' at the scammers are working."

CastleCops has given some temporary hosting to the Artists, and has a forum discussing the current attacks, here.

The scammers have been going after CastleCops for quite awhile now, and it appears that this time, they were unable to do much damage.

Last week, I did a post about blogger accounts becoming infected by the storm worm. This phenomonen was discovered by Alex Eckelberry, CEO Sunbelt Software, who is a blogger user, also.

The sheer power of the Storm botnet is said to rival the power of the world's top super computers. Wikipedia has been keeping up on the developments regarding it, here.