RSSCalif. Man Arrested for Running Botnet
By Ed Oswald | Published November 4, 2005, 12:04 PM
A California man was arrested by federal authorities on Thursday, accused of running a 400,000-computer network for illegal activities. This network, called a "botnet," contains systems that have been compromised by a hacker who can upload files or control them remotely through an IRC channel.
20 year-old Jeanson Achenta spread a trojan horse application called "rxbot" to the machines, which most notably infected government computers in the Weapons Division of the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center. He also is accused of uploading adware onto the compromised systems.
Achenta will be charged with 17 counts ranging from conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and charges related to tampering with government computers.
From the botnet, authorities say Achenta was able to make about $60,000 in cash and bought a BMW with his earnings from the scheme. His arrest would be the first for a botnet operator in the United States.
Authorities in other countries have already begun to crackdown on the problem. In the Netherlands, a group was recently arrested on the suspicion of running a botnet of approximately 1.5 million computers around the world.
Most of the money Achenta made was through deals with advertising service companies who paid him a fee to display their ads in his program. The identities of the companies were not disclosed, nor is it clear if they were aware of the money-making scheme.
According to Symantec, bots are being detected twice as frequently in the first half of 2005 over last year, with an average of just over 10,000 detections per day. The security company says this could be the reason why there has been an increase of denial of service and extortion attacks in recent months.
lol sorry
just read the further info. Apparently there is no allegation of DOS even though we know he probably did do it lol. Transmission of code to a protected computer. MY GOD it only counts with the government? And here I thought the laws protected all. I think that would be a difficult charge for me to get on someone through the internet cops yet it seems so easy for DOD hehe. impressive but I wonder if the secrets were stolen . Again I doubt there was much he could have stolen that could not be gained in other fashions by the real criminals.
He was nothing more than a capitalist with very poorly defined perimeters lol. night
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|He will wind up working for the government finding people as himself and others. It is what happens, or he goes to jail.
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|It becomes very clear at least in this case that there are alot of very arrogant or maybe even not too bright people for him to get so many bots into their systems before they discovered it. I know recently they have moved all incoming emails to cross their servers protection grid when before they did allow people to check email from web based servers. There is a clue I would think but I bet it wasn't the only way that rxbot was propegated. They have people that were doing alot more naive moves that caused this. just my opinion.
I say probation with a promise of trade secrets to bring the knowledge forth. The navy doesnt pay that well so ....... lol. Bad Move. On the other hand at least he will be doing something intersting ganking all his buds. Big question here is was he able and did he use government property to run denial of service attacks and where along with what the heck was he thinking. Balls of steel or Brains of cheese ? That is a question. I am sure his knowledge probably exceeds 80% of the Navy's Technet guys. Guess they need more certified people instead of their current protocol for hiring. Government cutbacks under democratic pressure. Heck blame the republicans . They already have huge bullseye painted on their A SS E S /endrant ;)
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|He deserves capital punishment for bringing us pain!!
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|they may be able to find the program with scans, but how does one find a compromised computer (zombie) other than word of mouth?
figure if you can find the compromised computers you could trace them back a distance to the
perpetrator.
not sure, i just enjoy the idea of a job entitled 'zombie hunter' to be useful for a freelance security expert
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|In this case, it was because the idiot tried to make a zombie out of a US Navy computer or something. Saw the article at http://www.pcpro.co.uk/n...rest-zombie-pusher.html but now they make you login so I cant remember (DOH!)
EDIT: works again, he tried to hijack PC's from the "Weapons Division of the US Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California and the US Department of Defense."
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|Will the available anti spyware,malware, scumware....ect. programs detect and remove this? Or will we have to buy more protection? Its getting to the point where the Anti this and that programs, cost more than a computer!!lol I think he might have made a big mistake playing with the military computers. I hope he gets life, but he`ll probably get a few years in a country club, write a book, and sign a contract for a new movie, "War Games 2".!!
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|"I hope he gets life[...]"
Man you are crazy. Life just fur using someone else stupidity. He did not kill anyone! He's just good with computers, what;'s wron with that?
It's the Sony who should get life for it's DRM rootkit!. bas****s.
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|Yeah, im crazy, but i didnt post a comment on the wrong subject! lol What does sony and drm have to do with botnets? But i agree with you about sony, anyway.
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|"I hope he gets life" -
dude, you're just not very wise.
Why not make your "enemies" work for you?!
So - I hope he gets a life job with the Navy, to teach them how to do it right . . .
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|I guess yall cant see the slightly tongue in cheek humor here. And dude, youre not very wise either. "Why not make your "enemies" work for you?" Yeah, thats what we need, people that are into hacking, and cracking, and botnets, and worm writing, in the military, running the computers!!! So, youre saying that we need to reward him, instead of punishing him, with a lifetime carrer in the navy? ......interesting lol...rotfl..
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|Yea, but "Itanshi Zombie Hunter" doesnt sound like as good a show as "Dog the Bounty Hunter." Man that guy is crazy. Maybe that could be a video game though.
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|They're both invasions of privacy.
Edit: Though I suppose doing it to a military computer is a bit more than an invasion of privacy.
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|lifetime career in the navy? In "the barrel" perhaps!
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|He should get at least 3 years. ;)
So don't worry about it. :P
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