In this series of articles, you will be exposed to the dark side of the Internet. Through interviews, independent research and real-world examples, you will experience the dangers of the World Wide Web.Travel with me down the “rabbit hole” as we explore the dark side of the Internet. Let me set the stage. Before sharing stories about who is trying to steal your information and how they do it, I need to introduce you to our company of virtual world villains.

Most users have no idea really how dangerous it can be to navigate the Internet or how easy it is for bad guys to steal your personal information. One simple exploit example could be a Bot Herder using automated techniques to locate a computer, your computer, on the Internet, and install a simple bot(1). Once that happens, the Bot Herder is able to control your system at will; it becomes a zombie. Most people will not even be aware of that it happened until you log int your credit card account to find out that you have been buying cell phones in Mexico.

Read more about “The Dark Side of the Internet” @ 270INC.

Meet the Cast of Characters

• DarkBot is a BotMaster from parts unknown, she is on the forefront of the cyber war. A college dropout who in her spare time likes to listen to stolen trash metal mp3s, collect Hello Kitty figurines and burns pirated copies of Disney movies which she shares with the rest of the world on limeWire.

(1) BotNets according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet is jargon for a collection of robots commonly referred to as bots.

Let me break down the L33t (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet) for you and take the time to officially thank you. Especially, I would like to thank all of the n00bs out there that make my job easy. You know who you are; all those n00bs using your computers without taking the time or understand how to protect your systems from me. You think that it’s not such a big deal to pay your bills, do your banking and send email with all that personal information without taking proper precautions, “Please, keep on doing that”. You are keeping me in hot pockets and all the Red Bull I can drink.

My only goal is to infect your system with one of my DarkBots and sell your zombiefied system to one of my many clients, (http://www.mysecurecyberspace.com/encyclopedia/index/zombie-machine.html). I’m making mad bank; usually pulling in around $800 per 10,000 bots, and with no shortages of systems on the Webs. I have the ability to create pools of Bots waiting to sell them to clients whenever I want. I’m in no way of looking for a real job as long as you keep helping me; just keep doing what you are doing.

I typically don’t take the time to exploit vulnerabilities I find on your systems; I place my Bots and wait. However, my clients are the ones that do the nasties with your zombiefied computers. They launch spam attacks, attack web sites, conduct phishing attacks, spread computer viruses, launch DoS attacks, download pornography, or steal your personal information. I just get my bank on and go, always trying to stay low and under the radar, (http://darkreading.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=219400902).

I’ll let you in on my BotNet secret; my choice of attack is pure simplicity, its downright poetry. I just use is a little social engineering via instant messages and emails. It’s so easy, after I infect your machine, I lure your friends in with a “check this out”-link. And, since the message came from you; most of your friends will take the bait. And, Bam! another zombie for my BotNet herd, ChaChing!

Most of you never have any indication that you are a Zombie. You go about your day doing your normal computing activities without a clue. You blame Microsoft for your computer running like a slug or ComCast being slow, but in reality my clients are eating up you processing power and your Internet bandwidth. Better yet, my smart clients won’t bother your system while you are using it. They will wait till low system usage before taking it over to do their bidding.

You could look for symptoms such as “a suddenly slow broadband connection, an unresponsive mouse or keyboard, excessive hard drive activity, or bounce notifications from people you’ve never tried to contact” (http://www.mysecurecyberspace.com/encyclopedia/index/zombie-machine.html). Besides, I’m not really hurting anyone anyway. Please for your sake; don’t bother trying to look. Think about it, “What could you do anyway?” And, by chance you were able to stop me this time; it would only be temporary and I will be back. The next time it will be personal, you would be interfering with my greenage and would need to make an example of you.

Cyber Stats:

• Spam by botnet shows that 40% was sent from the Grum botnet and 12% from Cutwail botnet.
• More than 50% of all seasonal spam has been sent from just two botnets: Grum and Cutwail.
• Almost 10% of all broadband users in the US will be infected with a botnet.
• Email will continue to be the primary social engineering tool for botnet attacks in 2010.
• The Nuwar botnet uses social engineering, a fake postcard or electronic card, to infect it’s victims.