[IP] Re: A Robot Network Seeks to Enlist Your Computer - NYTimes.com

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org>
Date: October 22, 2008 8:09:15 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Re: [IP] A Robot Network Seeks to Enlist Your Computer -  
NYTimes.com

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 03:27:14AM -0400, David Farber quoted:
> Botnets remain an Internet scourge. Active zombie networks created  
> by a
> growing criminal underground peaked last month at more than half a
> million computers, according to shadowserver.org, an organization that
> tracks botnets. Even though security experts have diminished the  
> botnets
> to about 300,000 computers, that is still twice the number detected a
> year ago.
>
> The actual numbers may be far larger; Microsoft investigators, who say
> they are tracking about 1,000 botnets at any given time, say the  
> largest
> network still controls several million PCs.

Any estimate of zombied systems under 100 million is woefully out-of- 
date.
(Note that people like Vint Cerf have suggested considerably higher
numbers, and I concur with their estimates.)  Even a tiny system seeded
with appropriate traps should be able to detect several million unique
systems a month, and of course that represents just a peek at the larger
population.

---Rsk




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