Ops and Intel update 03.20.10

Google formating sucks, highlight to read post...G

Fingertips Leave A Bacterial Fingerprint

Zeus Botnet Activity Down but Far from Out

Microsoft action on Waledac botnet saw between 70,000 and 90,000 users taken off the network, but computers remain infected and half are still trying to send spam.

Microsoft's takedown of 277 websites that hosted the Waledac botnet has severed almost 100,000 computers from the network.

The shutdown of the websites last month in what it called ‘Operation b49' saw a federal judge grant a temporary restraining order that cut off traffic to Waledac at the ‘.com' or domain registry level.

Jeff Williams, director of the malware protection centre at Microsoft, said that this served as a new phase of exploration in combating botnets, which it calls Project MARS (short for Microsoft Active Response for Security). He said that the company is still analysing and investigating the impact of this action, but early data from Microsoft and other researchers indicate that the actions have ‘effectively decimated communications within the Waledac bot network'.

SOURCE:

Fatwah Issued Against Terrorism

"Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence, and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it."

SOURCE:

The al-Qaeda-after-next is not to be feared, merely scheduled

SECURITY | ISLAM: "Terror Has a New Name; Lashkar-e-Taiba--the Pakistani militant group that perpetrated the 2008 Mumbai attacks--Is Getting Ready to Go Global," by Jeremy Kahn, Newsweek, 15 March 2010.

The roster is always going to be shifting.

That's why we call it the long war.

How long? Until globalization is truly global--simple as that.

Posted by Thomas P.M. Barnett 

Researchers in EMC’s RSA security division have uncovered an extensive infrastructure propping up the attackers behind the Zeus Trojan.

The findings reflect part of the reason the disruption of Troyak-AS on 9 March only caused Zeus traffic to slow, as opposed to stopping it in its tracks. Troyak is just one part of a larger cyber-crime infrastructure helping to provide “bulletproof” hosting to attackers.

“In light of our findings, AS-Troyak appears to be a piece in an intricate puzzle of networks that are used for malicious purposes,” RSA said yesterday. “We suspect that the purpose of these networks is to connect an armada of eight malicious, bulletproof malware-hosting facilities to the internet, assuring their constant online presence.”

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MIT Keeps System Online During Cyber Attack

Previously, when a system was under cyber attack, the only solution to mitigate the threat was to take the server offline. However, there may now be another option. MIT researchers have developed a system that allows servers and computers to continue to operate even while under cyber attack.

SOURCE:

To Battle Computer Hackers, the Pentagon Trains Its Ow

"We are creating cyber-bodyguards," says Sanjay Bavisi, president of the 

council. "We're not creating combat people." But as the world becomes 
increasingly interconnected via the Internet, the stakes have become too 
high to rely on static defenses alone to protect the immense flows of 
vital information that operate the world's financial, medical, 
governmental and infrastructure systems. "The bad guys already have the 
hacking technologies," Bavisi says. "We can say, 'Tough luck. The bad 
guys play by different rules, and you can't do anything about it, so 
just go lock your doors.' Or we can tell the good guys, 'We will arm you 
with the same knowledge as the bad guys, because to defeat the hacker  

you need to be able to think like one.'"

( GOOD LUCK, We are looking at selling a new cyber sidearm,
details to be released soon. G )

Cybersecurity bill changes, US president not permitted to shut down the Internet

Gerald