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

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh () hserus net>
Date: October 22, 2008 8:54:02 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: rsk () gsp org
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  A Robot Network Seeks to Enlist Your Computer -  
NYTimes.com

Communication gap here. The article is (though the reporter may not  
quite
realize it) talking about the size of an individual botnet, not the  
total
number of botted hosts in the world (whose number is legion..)

I wrote a paper on it earlier this year -
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/cyb/cybersecurity/docs/itu-botnet-mitigation-toolkit-background.pdf

        srs

David Farber [22/10/08 08:38 -0400]:
> 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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