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  • Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (Online)

    Strategy Page
    Aug 1 2009


    Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap


    August 1, 2009: Armenia recently accused neighbor Azerbaijan of hiring
    Internet criminal hackers to cripple Armenian access to the
    Internet. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at each other's throats for
    nearly two decades because of a land dispute. Although Azerbaijan has
    more people and money (because of oil), the Armenians are better
    soldiers, and the dispute has been stalemated. Then someone in the
    Azerbaijan government got familiar with Internet criminal gangs, which
    have been quite popular in Russia and Eastern Europe, mainly because
    of either no laws against Internet based crime, or lax (or just inept)
    law enforcement.

    Some of the Internet gangs have made deals with local police,
    especially in countries that still have a secret police force (like
    Russia, Belarus, or Azerbaijan), to do Internet based dirty deeds
    (spying, attacking political foes, and so on). Apparently the
    Azerbaijan operation was less discreet than most, or the Internet
    gangsters less capable of covering their tracks. In any event, such
    Internet gangs are quite numerous. While there are thousands of
    independent Internet criminals, an increasing number operate in groups
    (most small, some fairly large, all members usually operating from a
    different location.) Some of these groups are part of more
    conventional gangs, that can provide more traditional muscle when
    needed.

    Most of the Internet criminal income is based on building and running
    botnets (networks of illegally controlled PCs, yours might be one of
    them and you wouldn't know it). Botnets are big, and illegal,
    business. There's big money in botnets, which can be used to spew
    spam, launch a widespread search for secret files, or shut down
    websites with a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.

    Some 4-5 million PCs worldwide have been infiltrated by hackers (who
    planted a secret, "Trojan Horse" program that takes control) and
    turned into "zombies". This has become a big business, with each
    zombie PC in a botnet producing $300-$500 a year, or more, for those
    who control them. This is after you deduct the cost of replacing
    zombies that are detected and cleaned (of their secret
    software). Botnets of 100,000 or more PCs are not unusual, and many of
    them are for rent.

    Countries like Myanmar and Mauritania have been caught using botnets
    to attack political opponents, by shutting down their websites and
    sneaking in and stealing data (member and contributor lists,
    correspondence and planning documents). Many other nations have not
    been caught, but stand accused. Many unscrupulous web users hire
    Internet criminals to launch DDOS attacks. These can be carried out
    for less than a hundred dollars, and even hard core on-line gamers
    have rented botnets to knock opponents off line for a while.

    Military Cyber War organizations are aware of the widespread
    availability of mercenary Internet bot herders, and some of these
    cyber thugs have been hired by major nations to do espionage and other
    dirty deeds.

    http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20 090801.aspx

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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