Zeus Botnet Dealt a Blow As ISPs Troyak, Group 3 Knocked Out 156
itwbennett writes "Ninety of the 249 Zeus command-and-control servers were knocked offline overnight when two ISPs, named Troyak and Group 3, were taken offline. Whoever was behind the takedown 'just decided to knock out a large area of cyber-crime, and this was probably one of the easiest ways to do it,' said Kevin Stevens, a researcher with SecureWorks. As with the McColo takedown of just over a year ago, Troyak's upstream providers seem to have knocked it off the Internet, Cisco said in a statement. 'The ISP was "De-peered,"' Cisco said. 'Troyak's upstream network providers effectively pulled the plug on Troyak's router, refusing to transmit its traffic.'"
Niney (Score:3, Informative)
Internet Death Penalty (Score:4, Informative)
Might as well call it by its name: Internet Death Penalty [catb.org]
Re:Words (Score:5, Informative)
Update: Troyak is back online (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Words (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry, you're going to have to repeat that; what happened? Were they somehow removed from the internet?
They were the recipients of a staged compaction of fissile material achieving critical mass and subsequent chain reaction within a projectile arriving from an exospheric source.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
And for once it WOULD be a good idea.
Just look at what happened to Blue Security. They put spam down so well that a pissed off spammer lobbed an electronic nuke at them.
The guys that took out Blue were able to do so because they had a freaking ARMY of computers. An army, by the way, that they built up through illegal means. Now, accumulating firepower through theft, that does sound like a form of terrorism to me.
Re:The short answer? Money. (Score:3, Informative)
This is called a pink contract.
http://catb.org/jargon/html/P/pink-contract.html [catb.org]
Re:No Longer Vigilantism? (Score:2, Informative)
The Internet Death Penalty is older than Slashdot and even older than some Slashdot users. The internet is based on huge number of peering agreements, agreements which can be made, changed and terminated. The structure of the internet changes all the time. Take a look at the BGP updates if this interests you. One of the reasons for depeering is "you're causing us too much trouble, so we don't want your business anymore." Then the shunned ISP has to find another uplink. Sometimes no other ISP wants to act as uplink for an ISP with a bad reputation and the bad ISP can't get back online. That's the IDP. There's nothing lawless or vigilante about it.
Re:Windows again (Score:4, Informative)
Now, if you have a computer that it is impossible for the user to install stuff on, well then you have a much more secure platform.
What you have is a damn iPad
Re:And these ISP's other customers...? (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
Now, accumulating firepower through theft, that does sound like a form of terrorism to me.
Despite what the talking heads on TV or the politicians have told you to think, terrorism does not mean "anything illegal" or "anything against the interests of the country". Terrorism is an activity that is designed to accomplish its goals through the use of fear and paranoia against the general population.
Stockpiling a supply of bombs does not make you a terrorist, using or threatening to use them against a target such as a school does.