Now Microsoft offers 250000$ reward for mydoom.b virus

This news really made me to think that time and again we have said that it is possbile to track an individual to his / her PC.. in that case why such a huge ransom agreed to pay to the author....

Is it not possible to trace the origin of virus..... I am confused.....

Read the article

Microsoft offers $250,000 reward for arrest of author MyDoom.B virus

WASHINGTON (AP) - Microsoft Corp. promised Thursday to pay $250,000 to anyone who helps authorities find and prosecute the author of a fast-spreading computer virus.

The cash reward is the third so far under a $5-million program Microsoft announced in early November to help U.S. authorities nab authors of unusually damaging Internet infections aimed at consumers of the company's software products. The MyDoom.B virus, spread by e-mail, causes victims to launch an electronic attack starting Tuesday against Microsoft's own website and prevents victims from visiting the websites of leading anti-virus companies. The virus poses as an authentic-looking error message.

Among the only clues to the identity of the possible author is a mysterious message inside the virus: "Andy; I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry."

"This worm is a criminal attack," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice-president and general counsel.

"Microsoft wants to help the authorities catch this criminal."

Microsoft urged anyone with information about the author of the MyDoom.B virus to contact the FBI, Secret Service or Interpol.

The company targeted by an earlier version of the same virus, The SCO Group Inc., previously offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the creator of the Mydoom.A version, which is more widespread. Experts have said the same person probably created both versions.

Government officials and others have described the $250,000 rewards as the highest in recent memory funded entirely by the private sector - akin to cash bounties paid in the late 1800s by U.S. banks to vigilantes who hunted robbers.

Internal FBI documents indicate the U.S. government is a cautious supporter of Microsoft offering cash bounties.

FBI officials in October gave conditional approval to Microsoft for the concept. But they cautioned they won't share secret details of any investigation with Microsoft executives and won't promise to launch any formal investigation whenever the company announces a reward.

In the documents, obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, the FBI said it was developing "a more formal operating protocol for working with Microsoft" and with other companies that want to offer similar rewards.

Microsoft said residents of any country are eligible for the $250,000. The company has said previously it will not pay rewards to anyone involved in creating the viruses.

Previous rewards of $250,000 each were offered for information about those responsible for the Blaster and Sobig viruses, which spread rapidly last summer among hundreds of thousands of computers running Windows.

Link

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Originally posted here by anjali
This news really made me to think that time and again we have said that it is possbile to track an individual to his / her PC.. in that case why such a huge ransom agreed to pay to the author....

Is it not possible to trace the origin of virus..... I am confused.....

Read the article

Link

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I think that MS is trying to get someone close to the virus writer to "sell them out." It also might be hard to track the virus propigation if if started from several points..

So it means that a smart guy can creat a havoc and then move on unnoticed.... Is there no way that the law enforcers can trap the origin of virus.....

This reminds me of a recent post in AO where it was metnioned that future virus programmers would use distributed computing to launch the attacks....

Is this a very similar attack.. ?? I guess if yes we are going to have though times ahead.. as other virus programmer would also e encouraged to launch attacks and not to ever worry abt them being caught.......

Regards

A lot of times virii writers will also introduce the virus from a public pc, school, cafe, or a pc that they have remote control of. Very rarely will a virii writer be directly linked to a virus's release.

Also, sometimes, the virus writer never intends for the code to get into the wild. All s/he does is write a Proof of Concept code to prove that a particular method of infection would be effective. I don't think we're looking at that kind of thing here though.
Cheers,
cgkanchi

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Government officials and others have described the $250,000 rewards as the highest in recent memory funded entirely by the private sector - akin to cash bounties paid in the late 1800s by U.S. banks to vigilantes who hunted robbers.

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LOL...a new way to make money ...ya know im kidding
But wow...M$ really did this?
i also think they could raise it more...what bill gates has like what 30 bils...thats a lot more than those crapy $250,000....thats nothing to him

So.. it is assumed that if u use public PC's u can go scott free....

That also further means that a hacker can actualy a create a havoc on a companies by using public PC's and go scott free....

I had read the writer of Chennnr.... used to use public OC but he was still nabbed.... how would that have been possible.....

What I am worried is when the govts and organizations are ready to pay such a hefty price to catch the culprit...inspite of so much of advancement in technology..... It implies that there are serious security holes in the current internet scenario.........

I guess it is much more than using public systems... I guess as mentioned by our members.... the attackers are getting more and more stealthier.....

That means that new tachnologies have to be invented to tackle this issue.......

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What I am worried is when the govts and organizations are ready to pay such a hefty price to catch the culprit...inspite of so much of advancement in technology..... It implies that there are serious security holes in the current internet scenario.........

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Of course there are holes, there are holes in everything, computer related or not. However catching the person responsiable for writing and distributing this code would help to patch some holes. There is nothing Microsoft can really do, since I don't believe it really expliots any code. Maybe Microsoft should release Anti-Virus software with Windows, and have it update with Windows Update, it might help decrese the number of virus' abit. Who knows?

I think while catching the person(s) responsiable for this virus by offering a reward is good, Microsoft and SCO have to deal with the fact they are still going to get attacked come Tuesday, and with people not being able to access anti-virus websites, they might have to deal with alot, unless they released a patch that would get rid of the Virus themself.

Who knows...?

Peace

MB

This really isn't anything else but MS covering their own back. They've realized that their software is so buggy that any child can access it. So now they set out to scare the virii writers from making more viruses as people are starting to realize how insecure Windows really is.
And as scriptkiddie18 said this is about 3 seconds worth of profit for Bill so all this is really doing is feeding the general public propaganda making them think that MS are serious and will put a stop to this.
The truth is that if MS was serious about providing their users with security then the first thing they would do is to fix those damn bugs. It is a very dirty game they are playing, and they want to stay on top no matter what!

HDD, as MicroBurn said, this particular virus didn't make use of any holes in Windows. Instead, it just made use of the stupidity of the average Windows user. Microsoft was not to blame for this particular one. Had all UNIX users had root access to their systems and were as dumb as the average Windows user, this could have happened on UNIX as well.

Cheers,
cgkanchi

ooops, so he did, I must have missed that bit :eek:

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Maybe Microsoft should release Anti-Virus software with Windows, and have it update with Windows Update, it might help decrese the number of virus' abit. Who knows?

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http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1015...l?tag=mainstry

Kanchi.... I know that the virus is using innocent peoples PC to launch a DDOS against the target sites.....

All must be aware that on sunday i.e 1st Feb 04.... there was a huge DOS attack against SCO website.....

It is further feared that on Tuesday a simlar attack would be launched against Microsoft from visibly innocent PC's......

I guess end user will have to bear the burn of high bandwidth which his / her PC would consume in the complete event......

But it brings down us to one point... Last one year we have seen how much of terror can this Distributed Virus attack cause......

The article here is worth a thought.....

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1472828,00.asp

So may be a next generation disaster could be by form of such well formed disributed attack may be with the time to explode set much low.......

It could virtually create chaos in the internet and change the lives of many a organization....

There seems very less defense available to us today.....

Patch as everyone says.... but how much of patching is sufficient.... and every admin knows how though it is patch a production server.... coz this patches behave erroneous at times....

THe purpose I started the thread was to ascertain the threat posed by this new generation viruses....

Currently available remedial measures........

What our experts feel on future remedial measures......

How can a normal homeuser save there PC from being a victim of such attacks.....

Request our members to throw more light on above subject.....

Just to add on what I was saying I just found this article....

It says it shall take two years to address the current flaws... and that year 2004 shall be the worst year in the history of antivirus..... Further it says that IPv6 implementation is a solution....

Now I personally felt that IPv6 is only for increasing the no of publicly available entities... WHich I fear will further increase the complexity of computing....

Smart switching technologies will need an era to update........ Again all this incidentally will result in end users having to pay more from his / her pocket.....

The article for reference......

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Consumers will lose faith in the web
By Robert Jaques [30-01-2004]
Rising tide of fraud and abuse reaching critical levels, warns security expert




Consumers will be "driven from the internet" this year by the rising tide of spam and malicious code, an IT security expert has claimed.
Without rapid deployment of improved technology such as IPv6 to defeat the threat of viruses, spam and hacking, 2004 will be the worst year ever for security incidents and privacy breaches, warned industry veteran Stephen Cobb.

Cobb, a long-time e-security consultant for the US government, author and university professor of information assurance, said: "There is a limit to how many worms, 'phishing' schemes and fraudulent messages consumers and companies will take."

He added that "two years to solve problems like spam is too long", referring to recent statements by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates that a "magic solution" would help solve the spam problem within two years.

According to Cobb, many people in government and industry still fail to understand how lawless and vulnerable the internet is for consumers.

"I am not the only one who has sounded the alarm in recent years, but there have not been enough of us and certainly not enough folks in industry and government comprehend the message," he said.

"Consumer confidence in email and the web is being shaken as never before."

Cobb suggested that the increasing frequency with which corporate email systems crash under the weight of unwanted messages and malicious code like the recent Mydoom worm is making consumers fearful of the internet.

The problem can only be alleviated, according to Cobb, if government and industry co-operate to deploy improved internet security technology on a wide scale.

"If we finally implement IPv6, require strong authentication of websites and email senders, and upgrade the intelligence of routers and switches so that malicious activity is detected and impeded as soon as it starts, maybe then we will stand a chance," he concluded.

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Link: http://www.vnunet.com/News/1152405

i don't get it All most all versions of MS have sec holes buty do people keep using them and then cry when a virus loose

tejaswyappalla, exactly *what* MS hole is this virus exploiting? would be glad if you could clear that up for me.

I find it amazing how everyone jumps to accuse the Manufacturer of the OS when they are hit hard by a virus - wouldnt it be more appropriate to go ape at the antivirus people? People buy AV gear *knowing* it will fail when a new virus comes out - but the fault, it seems, is with microsoft.

I guess we are going off-track.... We are veiwing a generic threat from Internet to all the Internet users irrespective of their OS....

With more of such distributed viruses to continue to play havoc and have the ability to go un-noticed we are concerned abt what technological changes would have to be undertaken to mitigate the risks arising from the new stealthier viruses.....

SOme say it is IPv6 some say Switching technology has to further undergo a revolution.. but all this will take some time.... But are this the only options? can we not have a more simpler solution.....

People, all we can do is to educate.

Educate your neibhours, your colleges, your familly... spread the word...

and remeber: ANY OS is safe and secure as Admin that administer it, and user that use it!

I use M$ for a long time, and my box is not infected. That is because I know what to do, what not to do. If I just decided to go on linux tommorow, I will get box full of holes because my knowledge of linux is null. Knowledge is the best tool, and best weapon... spread it...

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Originally posted here by ikalo
Knowledge is the best tool, and best weapon... spread it...

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I beg to differ; Tactical thermonuclear weapons are the best weapon, and the best knowledge is of how to use them.