Koobface Gang Uses Facebook to Spread Powerful Worm | Hacker News Reader

Koobface Gang Uses Facebook to Spread Powerful Worm

nytimes.com

43 pointsfreejoe7614 comments

The Koobface gang’s freedom underscores how hard it is to apprehend international computer criminals

Oh, yes - the problem is the international criminals who run botnets, not the poor hapless American ISPs who somehow just can't do anything about identified botnet hosts.

If only there were some way for the American government to be given tools to protect defenseless Americans from evildoers abroad!

"Efforts to contact members of the group for comment have been unsuccessful."

Okay okay, but what would they have said?

'Our efforts to pwn n00bs / go shopping / pay off local cops have been GREAT SUCCESS!'

'At least we're not Paypal.'

No need for SOPA to combat this kind of cybercrime. DNS takedown may slow these guys down but it would not stop anything.

SOPA doesn't fight cybercrime! It attempted to allow US authorities to block access to people who provided counterfeit or unlicensed copywritten work. That's all.

The pharma counterfeiters ARE the botnet herders ARE the credit card rings. And counterfeit drugs would have fallen under SOPA.

SOPA was a horrible idea, of course. But yes, any anti-counterfeiting laws can also be cybercrime laws.

Companies like Microsoft have worked with ISPs to take down botnet command and control. All this without needing new regulations.

What does SOPA have to do with this? SOPA is meant to battle copyright and trademark infringement, not 'cybercrime' in general. Making SOPA into something that it's not isn't an effective way to fight it.

A sniper rifle would do a much better job.

I hate to be that guy, but really? You're suggesting that people be killed for supposedly infecting machines and spreading malware? They should be brought to justice; that's not the same as murder.

I'm not suggesting it, but I wouldn't be upset if it happened. These people are scum in my book.

I love that they use Macs to make malware.

The group cleverly harnessed the infrastructures of powerful online services — from Facebook and Twitter to Google’s search engine and Blogger — to do the heavy lifting, and may have run its enterprise with just a few computers.

Some time ago there was a curious thread on Reddit, about multiple accounts and subreddits with thousands of posts looking like hash strings, somebody suggested those were encrypted instructions for botnets.

It doesn't take much to write the next "fake spyware scanner 2012", just tedious.

Relevant links:

http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/2012/01/whos-behind-koobface-bo...

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/koobface/

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