4 ms·

US, European police take down highly elusive botnet known as Beebone

34 points by ghosh 12y ago

ch 12y ago
"Authorities are in the process of contacting Internet service providers and computer emergency response teams around the world to help identify and contact individual victims." I have this image of a white van pulling up to a curb and out pours a team of technologists in hazmat suits who descend on some hapless computer user's home to forcibly reinstall Windows on their HP Pavillion.
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  ...restocking disks wiped by extortion-ware from NSA archives, replenishing bank accounts
henpa 12y ago
Is there a way to be 100% sure that my PC won't belong to a botnet? I once read about a spyware that keeps persistant even after a format/install. Is it possible to be safe with Windows 8.1? Or should I use Linux?
- shubb 12y ago
  There are viruses for both. Keep your computer behind a NAT firewall, don't open dodgy looking emails, pirate software, or go on dodgy websites and you can be fairly confident. The best security model on a common operating system is probably Android, especially the newer security enhanced versions. Keep your work, banking, and home stuff separate? Check. Fine grained control of what apps can do? Check. Prevent programs from interfering with other programs or the OS? Check. The 3 problems for android are - we don't know much about most software publishers (why should we trust them), lack of opensource apps for important stuff, and users are used to giving apps permissions they don't need.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  > Is there a way to be 100% sure that my PC won't belong to a botnet? Of course. Don't connect it to the internet.
  - ionwake 12y ago
    It could connect itself. Best make sure it is not connected to a power source. It is the only way to be sure.
Fuxy 12y ago
With the growing number of crap-ware being installed whenever you try to install something on windows I'm amazed that there are windows computers not part of a botnet. After using Linux as my daily driver for the past 5 years I had to reinstall my windows partition and when I tried install some new software I haven't used before it completely messed up the entire install to the point where I decided to scrap it and re install again. Lesson learned use VM's wiener you try something new especially on windows. It's gotten worse in the 5 years i haven't used it that much.
- nozzlegear 12y ago
  If you haven't tried it yet, I would highly recommend using Chocolatey [1] to install Windows software from the command line. Chocolatey packages install without all of the crapware and "uncheck this box to maybe not install a bunch of junk" dialogs. I would estimate that 95% of all software I need to install on Windows is now available as a Chocolatey package, including Chrome, Firefox, Git, NPM, Notepad++, GIMP, Steam, Fiddler, etc. The best part is that Chocolatey will be included in Windows 10 by default, through the built-in OneGet package manager. [1]: https://chocolatey.org https://chocolatey.org
- realusername 12y ago
  Keeping a windows machine virus-free/crapware free is really really difficult. There is always something which is installing something else. The best I've found to manage it is to check regularly using Malwarebytes and using Glasswire to monitor the network connections, but yes, it's far from ideal.
  - cdr 12y ago
    Really difficult for a non-technical user, absolutely. For a technical person, more annoying than difficult.
    - realusername 12y ago
      That's the point, botnets are not mainly composed of computers used by technical users.

34 points by ghosh 12y ago

ch 12y ago

"Authorities are in the process of contacting Internet service providers and computer emergency response teams around the world to help identify and contact individual victims." I have this image of a white van pulling up to a curb and out pours a team of technologists in hazmat suits who descend on some hapless computer user's home to forcibly reinstall Windows on their HP Pavillion.

spacemanmatt 12y ago
...restocking disks wiped by extortion-ware from NSA archives, replenishing bank accounts

henpa 12y ago

Is there a way to be 100% sure that my PC won't belong to a botnet? I once read about a spyware that keeps persistant even after a format/install. Is it possible to be safe with Windows 8.1? Or should I use Linux?

shubb 12y ago
There are viruses for both. Keep your computer behind a NAT firewall, don't open dodgy looking emails, pirate software, or go on dodgy websites and you can be fairly confident. The best security model on a common operating system is probably Android, especially the newer security enhanced versions. Keep your work, banking, and home stuff separate? Check. Fine grained control of what apps can do? Check. Prevent programs from interfering with other programs or the OS? Check. The 3 problems for android are - we don't know much about most software publishers (why should we trust them), lack of opensource apps for important stuff, and users are used to giving apps permissions they don't need.
thaumasiotes 12y ago
> Is there a way to be 100% sure that my PC won't belong to a botnet? Of course. Don't connect it to the internet.
- ionwake 12y ago
  It could connect itself. Best make sure it is not connected to a power source. It is the only way to be sure.

Fuxy 12y ago

With the growing number of crap-ware being installed whenever you try to install something on windows I'm amazed that there are windows computers not part of a botnet. After using Linux as my daily driver for the past 5 years I had to reinstall my windows partition and when I tried install some new software I haven't used before it completely messed up the entire install to the point where I decided to scrap it and re install again. Lesson learned use VM's wiener you try something new especially on windows. It's gotten worse in the 5 years i haven't used it that much.

nozzlegear 12y ago
If you haven't tried it yet, I would highly recommend using Chocolatey [1] to install Windows software from the command line. Chocolatey packages install without all of the crapware and "uncheck this box to maybe not install a bunch of junk" dialogs. I would estimate that 95% of all software I need to install on Windows is now available as a Chocolatey package, including Chrome, Firefox, Git, NPM, Notepad++, GIMP, Steam, Fiddler, etc. The best part is that Chocolatey will be included in Windows 10 by default, through the built-in OneGet package manager. [1]: https://chocolatey.org https://chocolatey.org
realusername 12y ago
Keeping a windows machine virus-free/crapware free is really really difficult. There is always something which is installing something else. The best I've found to manage it is to check regularly using Malwarebytes and using Glasswire to monitor the network connections, but yes, it's far from ideal.
- cdr 12y ago
  Really difficult for a non-technical user, absolutely. For a technical person, more annoying than difficult.
  - realusername 12y ago
    That's the point, botnets are not mainly composed of computers used by technical users.