Zombies come out and play
The John Markoff of the New York Times has written an article warning of the danger of botnets or networks of slaved zombie computers. This has of course, been a problem for a long time, but it's never really a mainstream threat until it's been announced as such in the Times.
The problem comes from numerous viruses and malware that infect susceptible computer systems (read: Windows boxes) and leave a back door open for later usage. Markoff interviews a professor who claims that there are over 65 million infected computers. So you may be wondering why all the digital undead? They are roped together electronically to launch attacks against selected targets by their masters. Sometimes they're scanning for selected financial information (although I think that this threat is overplayed). More likely they're used to launch Denial of Service attacks. The concerted probing of millions of machines can knock any network off the air, commercial or government.
And that's the root of my concern. The existence of such a vast network of botnets is a national security threat of the highest order. Perhaps, even probably, some of these slaved boxes are controlled by groups that we would define as terrorists. They could use them to blackmail companies and perhaps already have, but more threateningly, could be used to shut down, say Wall Street...the Pentagon...perhaps the New York Times itself (again).
Why is our government allowing this threat to exist? A massively parallel cyber attack could easily cripple national infrastructure, possibly cost lives by jamming up the online abilities of hospitals and first responders and certainly cost billions of dollars. As we become more institutionally dependent on the Internet for our daily well-being, the potential harm resulting from its disruption escalates to an equivalent level of crisis as would be another attack on a US airplane, passenger train or cargo ship.
Posted on January 09, 2007
