Bot Herder Pleads Guilty
There are only about three games in the information security world if you are a bad guy- You either sell crap with spam emails, install programs or trick people to steal identity information so you can open up lines of credit (or sell the information!), or you build Bot Nets to either kill internet sites, or bribe people so you won’t kill internet sites.
It turns out that someone that built a BotNet, which is a group of hacked computers that have software that allows them to be controlled remotely as a massive group, sold access to the botnet to other bad guys to send out spam and also used it to click on his stupid ad banner on his fake website to rip off an ad company of about 60 thousand dollars.
From Security Focus Here:
Jeanson James Ancheta of Downey, Calif. entered a plea of guilty to four of the original 17 charges in the case, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. The four charges include two counts of conspiracy, damaging government computers used for national defense and accessing protected computers to commit fraud.
According to the plea agreement, Ancheta used automated software to infect Windows systems and to create botnets–centrally controlled networks of compromised PCs–to which he sold access. Computers at the China Lake Naval Air Facility were among those compromised by the bot nets investigated in the case. He also used the bot nets to garner affiliate revenue from adware, the agreement stated.
“Ancheta admitted generating roughly $60,000 in advertising affiliate proceeds by directing more than 400,000 infected computers that were part of his botnet armies to other computer servers he controlled where adware he had modified would surreptitiously download onto the zombies,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in the statement.
The guilty plea marks the latest success for investigators’ attempts to track down and prosecute bot herders, the name that security researchers have given to people that control the networks of compromised computers.
The four charges could result in a maximum of 25 years of prison time and fines of $1 million, if the judge in the case rules that the sentences should be served consecutively and levies the maximum fine.
As part of the plea agreement, Ancheta will forfeit more than $60,000 in proceeds, a 1993 BMW, and various computer equipment. In addition, the defendant has agreed to pay nearly $15,000 in restitution to the government, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a statement.
The California man will be sentenced on May 1.
400,000 PC’s, working in concert, can easily keep most websites off the Internet, if they are not distributed via load balancing software or working with a content provider like Yahoo or Akamai. With this kind of power, what does this kid do? Take down the city paper’s website? Cause Wikipedia to blink out? No, he uses them to click on his website’s banner to generate pennies per click. He likely got caught when the ad content provider noticed the sky high bill on his stupid garage band’s website.
This genius was certainly not a criminal mastermind. I also hope he doesn’t get some lame job with the FBI in order to pay his 15k restitution.
