Zombies Put Security Consultant Behind Bars
No, the living dead did not rise out of the ground, catch an innocent security consultant and throw him in jail. The zombies I am talking about are infected computers, and the security consultant is the one that had purposely infected them in order to set up a botnet, which he later controlled for malicious purposes. This week is National Zombie Awareness Week in Australia, so I thought it befitting to present a piece of news that depicts the dangers of zombie machines.
The security consultant in question is 27-year old John Schiefer, who has been in court since 2007 and has admitted that during his peak he was in control of a botnet which numbered about a quarter of a million computers. To put it in perspective, that’s 250,000 zombie machines that he could use (and indeed used) to steal security, credentials (online banking data, usernames and passwords). The prosecution, due to the fact that John Schiefer represented a serious danger to society, asked for a sentence of 5 years.
The court did not put John Schiefer behind bars for 5 years, or 60 months; instead it issued a much lenient sentence, but not too lenient – 4 years or 48 months. But wait, there’s more: he was also ordered by the court to hand over $19,000 to PayPal and other companies he defrauded.
This is the perfect example on how large botnets can get and how much damage they are capable of. It is thus very important that you keep your operating system up-to-date and patched, that you employ a proper security solution (which you should also update often), and that you use strong passwords. It might also prove a good idea not to access sensitive web pages (like your online banking account) from computers that you have security doubts about (especially the one you have at work).
Speaking of trials, Swedish torrent tracker The Pirate Bay is also due in court on the 19th of April. This is when the three co-founders and one dot com millionaire that supported the torrent site have to come in and find out the results of the trial that has just now ended - the trial where big media companies asked the four to be sentenced to 1 year in jail. A resume of the trial is available here .
Tags: Zombie, Botnet, Security, John Schiefer
The security consultant in question is 27-year old John Schiefer, who has been in court since 2007 and has admitted that during his peak he was in control of a botnet which numbered about a quarter of a million computers. To put it in perspective, that’s 250,000 zombie machines that he could use (and indeed used) to steal security, credentials (online banking data, usernames and passwords). The prosecution, due to the fact that John Schiefer represented a serious danger to society, asked for a sentence of 5 years.
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The court did not put John Schiefer behind bars for 5 years, or 60 months; instead it issued a much lenient sentence, but not too lenient – 4 years or 48 months. But wait, there’s more: he was also ordered by the court to hand over $19,000 to PayPal and other companies he defrauded.
This is the perfect example on how large botnets can get and how much damage they are capable of. It is thus very important that you keep your operating system up-to-date and patched, that you employ a proper security solution (which you should also update often), and that you use strong passwords. It might also prove a good idea not to access sensitive web pages (like your online banking account) from computers that you have security doubts about (especially the one you have at work).
Speaking of trials, Swedish torrent tracker The Pirate Bay is also due in court on the 19th of April. This is when the three co-founders and one dot com millionaire that supported the torrent site have to come in and find out the results of the trial that has just now ended - the trial where big media companies asked the four to be sentenced to 1 year in jail. A resume of the trial is available here .
Tags: Zombie, Botnet, Security, John Schiefer
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