Mistyeyeddreamer
12-07-03, 01:14 PM
I just read this, I think they're referring to broadband.
More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have had their computers hijacked by hackers and turned into virtual hosts for pornographic Web sites.
.
The enslaved computers apparently are chosen by the hackers because they are linked by high-speed connections to the Internet. The PCs are loaded with a software program that displays explicit Web pages advertising for-pay adult sites and offers to sign visitors up as customers.
.
Unless the owner of the hijacked computer is technologically sophisticated, the activity is likely to go unnoticed. The program, which only downloads the pornographic material briefly to the usurped computer in order to upload it to visitors, is invisible to the computer's owner. The hackers operating the ring use each computer in their network for only a few minutes at a time, rotating through a large number of computers rapidly.
.
Some of the computers also send spam e-mail messages to drum up traffic to the sites.
.
"Here people are sort of involved in the porno business and don't even know it," said Richard Smith, a computer researcher who has been studying the phenomenon since he first saw signs of it earlier this month. Smith said he believed the ring could be traced back to Russian spam senders.
.
The creator of the ring gets money from the adult sites for signing up new customers. But money from the adult sites may only be part of the benefit of the scheme, according to Joe Stewart, senior intrusion analyst with Lurhq Corp., a provider of computer security services based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "It might purely be a way to collect credit card details," he said.
.
The ring also has been used to run a version of a scheme for collecting credit card information from unwary consumers that has been called the "PayPal scam," in which people get e-mail messages that purport to come from PayPal, the online payments service, asking them to fill out a Web site form with account information.
.
By hiding behind a such ring of hijacked machines, the originator of a mass e-mail can cloak his identity. The covert network of porn machines also helps purveyors of pornography and spam overcome one of their biggest problems: getting shut down by Internet service providers who receive complaints about the raunchy material. The web of front machines hides the identity of the true server, so "there's no individual computer to shut down," Smith said. "We're dealing with somebody here who is very clever."
.
Stewart of Lurhq said that the ring was troubling, not because of what it is being used for now, but what it might be used for in the future.
.
It is unclear precisely how the program gets into computers. Smith said that he believed that the delivery vehicle was a variant on the worm known as "sobig," which is capable of installing software on target computers.
.
Stewart, a computer virus expert, said he had seen no evidence that the sobig virus is the culprit, and was looking at other mechanisms for delivery. He said that because a large number of infected computers get their Internet service from America Online, he suspected that the hackers might be sending the program through a popular program like AOL Instant Messenger.
.
Neither Smith nor Stewart has found a simple way to tell whether a computer is infected. Smith said that as word of the rogue program - technically, a reverse proxy server - gets out, antivirus companies will quickly publish updates to their products to find and disable the software. Also, people can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, he said. The program does not affect the Apple Macintosh line of computers or computers running variants of the Unix operating system.
.
The computer ring is the latest in an evolution of attacks that allow creators of spam and illicit computer schemes to use other people's computers as their accomplices. For several years, senders of spam have relied upon a vestigial element of the Internet mail infrastructure known as "open relay" to use Internet servers as conduits for their spam.
.
As network administrators have gradually shut down the open relay networks, spam senders have used the sobig virus and others to plant similar capabilities on PC machines. Recent waves of spam have been sent through those hijacked machines. But this appears to be the first viral infection that causes target computers to display whole Web sites, Smith said.
.
An official of a company that pays Web site owners for referring users to pornographic sites said that he was surprised to hear that one of his clients might be using a ring of hijacked computers to advertise porn sites.
.
"This is the first I have heard about it," wrote the executive, who asked that he not be named, in response to questions sent via Instant Messenger. He said he would investigate the matter and if the details were confirmed, he would "kill his account." He declined to name the client, who is Russian, but said "I have known this guy for about five months and never had a problem with him."
.
The New York Times More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have had their computers hijacked by hackers and turned into virtual hosts for pornographic Web sites.
.
The enslaved computers apparently are chosen by the hackers because they are linked by high-speed connections to the Internet. The PCs are loaded with a software program that displays explicit Web pages advertising for-pay adult sites and offers to sign visitors up as customers.
.
Unless the owner of the hijacked computer is technologically sophisticated, the activity is likely to go unnoticed. The program, which only downloads the pornographic material briefly to the usurped computer in order to upload it to visitors, is invisible to the computer's owner. The hackers operating the ring use each computer in their network for only a few minutes at a time, rotating through a large number of computers rapidly.
.
Some of the computers also send spam e-mail messages to drum up traffic to the sites.
.
"Here people are sort of involved in the porno business and don't even know it," said Richard Smith, a computer researcher who has been studying the phenomenon since he first saw signs of it earlier this month. Smith said he believed the ring could be traced back to Russian spam senders.
.
The creator of the ring gets money from the adult sites for signing up new customers. But money from the adult sites may only be part of the benefit of the scheme, according to Joe Stewart, senior intrusion analyst with Lurhq Corp., a provider of computer security services based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "It might purely be a way to collect credit card details," he said.
.
The ring also has been used to run a version of a scheme for collecting credit card information from unwary consumers that has been called the "PayPal scam," in which people get e-mail messages that purport to come from PayPal, the online payments service, asking them to fill out a Web site form with account information.
.
By hiding behind a such ring of hijacked machines, the originator of a mass e-mail can cloak his identity. The covert network of porn machines also helps purveyors of pornography and spam overcome one of their biggest problems: getting shut down by Internet service providers who receive complaints about the raunchy material. The web of front machines hides the identity of the true server, so "there's no individual computer to shut down," Smith said. "We're dealing with somebody here who is very clever."
.
Stewart of Lurhq said that the ring was troubling, not because of what it is being used for now, but what it might be used for in the future.
.
It is unclear precisely how the program gets into computers. Smith said that he believed that the delivery vehicle was a variant on the worm known as "sobig," which is capable of installing software on target computers.
.
Stewart, a computer virus expert, said he had seen no evidence that the sobig virus is the culprit, and was looking at other mechanisms for delivery. He said that because a large number of infected computers get their Internet service from America Online, he suspected that the hackers might be sending the program through a popular program like AOL Instant Messenger.
.
Neither Smith nor Stewart has found a simple way to tell whether a computer is infected. Smith said that as word of the rogue program - technically, a reverse proxy server - gets out, antivirus companies will quickly publish updates to their products to find and disable the software. Also, people can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, he said. The program does not affect the Apple Macintosh line of computers or computers running variants of the Unix operating system.
.
The computer ring is the latest in an evolution of attacks that allow creators of spam and illicit computer schemes to use other people's computers as their accomplices. For several years, senders of spam have relied upon a vestigial element of the Internet mail infrastructure known as "open relay" to use Internet servers as conduits for their spam.
.
As network administrators have gradually shut down the open relay networks, spam senders have used the sobig virus and others to plant similar capabilities on PC machines. Recent waves of spam have been sent through those hijacked machines. But this appears to be the first viral infection that causes target computers to display whole Web sites, Smith said.
.
An official of a company that pays Web site owners for referring users to pornographic sites said that he was surprised to hear that one of his clients might be using a ring of hijacked computers to advertise porn sites.
.
"This is the first I have heard about it," wrote the executive, who asked that he not be named, in response to questions sent via Instant Messenger. He said he would investigate the matter and if the details were confirmed, he would "kill his account." He declined to name the client, who is Russian, but said "I have known this guy for about five months and never had a problem with him."
.
The New York Times More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have had their computers hijacked by hackers and turned into virtual hosts for pornographic Web sites.
.
The enslaved computers apparently are chosen by the hackers because they are linked by high-speed connections to the Internet. The PCs are loaded with a software program that displays explicit Web pages advertising for-pay adult sites and offers to sign visitors up as customers.
.
Unless the owner of the hijacked computer is technologically sophisticated, the activity is likely to go unnoticed. The program, which only downloads the pornographic material briefly to the usurped computer in order to upload it to visitors, is invisible to the computer's owner. The hackers operating the ring use each computer in their network for only a few minutes at a time, rotating through a large number of computers rapidly.
.
Some of the computers also send spam e-mail messages to drum up traffic to the sites.
.
"Here people are sort of involved in the porno business and don't even know it," said Richard Smith, a computer researcher who has been studying the phenomenon since he first saw signs of it earlier this month. Smith said he believed the ring could be traced back to Russian spam senders.
.
The creator of the ring gets money from the adult sites for signing up new customers. But money from the adult sites may only be part of the benefit of the scheme, according to Joe Stewart, senior intrusion analyst with Lurhq Corp., a provider of computer security services based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "It might purely be a way to collect credit card details," he said.
.
The ring also has been used to run a version of a scheme for collecting credit card information from unwary consumers that has been called the "PayPal scam," in which people get e-mail messages that purport to come from PayPal, the online payments service, asking them to fill out a Web site form with account information.
.
By hiding behind a such ring of hijacked machines, the originator of a mass e-mail can cloak his identity. The covert network of porn machines also helps purveyors of pornography and spam overcome one of their biggest problems: getting shut down by Internet service providers who receive complaints about the raunchy material. The web of front machines hides the identity of the true server, so "there's no individual computer to shut down," Smith said. "We're dealing with somebody here who is very clever."
.
Stewart of Lurhq said that the ring was troubling, not because of what it is being used for now, but what it might be used for in the future.
.
It is unclear precisely how the program gets into computers. Smith said that he believed that the delivery vehicle was a variant on the worm known as "sobig," which is capable of installing software on target computers.
.
Stewart, a computer virus expert, said he had seen no evidence that the sobig virus is the culprit, and was looking at other mechanisms for delivery. He said that because a large number of infected computers get their Internet service from America Online, he suspected that the hackers might be sending the program through a popular program like AOL Instant Messenger.
.
Neither Smith nor Stewart has found a simple way to tell whether a computer is infected. Smith said that as word of the rogue program - technically, a reverse proxy server - gets out, antivirus companies will quickly publish updates to their products to find and disable the software. Also, people can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, he said. The program does not affect the Apple Macintosh line of computers or computers running variants of the Unix operating system.
.
The computer ring is the latest in an evolution of attacks that allow creators of spam and illicit computer schemes to use other people's computers as their accomplices. For several years, senders of spam have relied upon a vestigial element of the Internet mail infrastructure known as "open relay" to use Internet servers as conduits for their spam.
.
As network administrators have gradually shut down the open relay networks, spam senders have used the sobig virus and others to plant similar capabilities on PC machines. Recent waves of spam have been sent through those hijacked machines. But this appears to be the first viral infection that causes target computers to display whole Web sites, Smith said.
.
An official of a company that pays Web site owners for referring users to pornographic sites said that he was surprised to hear that one of his clients might be using a ring of hijacked computers to advertise porn sites.
.
"This is the first I have heard about it," wrote the executive, who asked that he not be named, in response to questions sent via Instant Messenger. He said he would investigate the matter and if the details were confirmed, he would "kill his account." He declined to name the client, who is Russian, but said "I have known this guy for about five months and never had a problem with him."
.
The New York Times
More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have had their computers hijacked by hackers and turned into virtual hosts for pornographic Web sites.
.
The enslaved computers apparently are chosen by the hackers because they are linked by high-speed connections to the Internet. The PCs are loaded with a software program that displays explicit Web pages advertising for-pay adult sites and offers to sign visitors up as customers.
.
Unless the owner of the hijacked computer is technologically sophisticated, the activity is likely to go unnoticed. The program, which only downloads the pornographic material briefly to the usurped computer in order to upload it to visitors, is invisible to the computer's owner. The hackers operating the ring use each computer in their network for only a few minutes at a time, rotating through a large number of computers rapidly.
.
Some of the computers also send spam e-mail messages to drum up traffic to the sites.
.
"Here people are sort of involved in the porno business and don't even know it," said Richard Smith, a computer researcher who has been studying the phenomenon since he first saw signs of it earlier this month. Smith said he believed the ring could be traced back to Russian spam senders.
.
The creator of the ring gets money from the adult sites for signing up new customers. But money from the adult sites may only be part of the benefit of the scheme, according to Joe Stewart, senior intrusion analyst with Lurhq Corp., a provider of computer security services based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "It might purely be a way to collect credit card details," he said.
.
The ring also has been used to run a version of a scheme for collecting credit card information from unwary consumers that has been called the "PayPal scam," in which people get e-mail messages that purport to come from PayPal, the online payments service, asking them to fill out a Web site form with account information.
.
By hiding behind a such ring of hijacked machines, the originator of a mass e-mail can cloak his identity. The covert network of porn machines also helps purveyors of pornography and spam overcome one of their biggest problems: getting shut down by Internet service providers who receive complaints about the raunchy material. The web of front machines hides the identity of the true server, so "there's no individual computer to shut down," Smith said. "We're dealing with somebody here who is very clever."
.
Stewart of Lurhq said that the ring was troubling, not because of what it is being used for now, but what it might be used for in the future.
.
It is unclear precisely how the program gets into computers. Smith said that he believed that the delivery vehicle was a variant on the worm known as "sobig," which is capable of installing software on target computers.
.
Stewart, a computer virus expert, said he had seen no evidence that the sobig virus is the culprit, and was looking at other mechanisms for delivery. He said that because a large number of infected computers get their Internet service from America Online, he suspected that the hackers might be sending the program through a popular program like AOL Instant Messenger.
.
Neither Smith nor Stewart has found a simple way to tell whether a computer is infected. Smith said that as word of the rogue program - technically, a reverse proxy server - gets out, antivirus companies will quickly publish updates to their products to find and disable the software. Also, people can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, he said. The program does not affect the Apple Macintosh line of computers or computers running variants of the Unix operating system.
.
The computer ring is the latest in an evolution of attacks that allow creators of spam and illicit computer schemes to use other people's computers as their accomplices. For several years, senders of spam have relied upon a vestigial element of the Internet mail infrastructure known as "open relay" to use Internet servers as conduits for their spam.
.
As network administrators have gradually shut down the open relay networks, spam senders have used the sobig virus and others to plant similar capabilities on PC machines. Recent waves of spam have been sent through those hijacked machines. But this appears to be the first viral infection that causes target computers to display whole Web sites, Smith said.
.
An official of a company that pays Web site owners for referring users to pornographic sites said that he was surprised to hear that one of his clients might be using a ring of hijacked computers to advertise porn sites.
.
"This is the first I have heard about it," wrote the executive, who asked that he not be named, in response to questions sent via Instant Messenger. He said he would investigate the matter and if the details were confirmed, he would "kill his account." He declined to name the client, who is Russian, but said "I have known this guy for about five months and never had a problem with him."
.
The New York Times More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have had their computers hijacked by hackers and turned into virtual hosts for pornographic Web sites.
.
The enslaved computers apparently are chosen by the hackers because they are linked by high-speed connections to the Internet. The PCs are loaded with a software program that displays explicit Web pages advertising for-pay adult sites and offers to sign visitors up as customers.
.
Unless the owner of the hijacked computer is technologically sophisticated, the activity is likely to go unnoticed. The program, which only downloads the pornographic material briefly to the usurped computer in order to upload it to visitors, is invisible to the computer's owner. The hackers operating the ring use each computer in their network for only a few minutes at a time, rotating through a large number of computers rapidly.
.
Some of the computers also send spam e-mail messages to drum up traffic to the sites.
.
"Here people are sort of involved in the porno business and don't even know it," said Richard Smith, a computer researcher who has been studying the phenomenon since he first saw signs of it earlier this month. Smith said he believed the ring could be traced back to Russian spam senders.
.
The creator of the ring gets money from the adult sites for signing up new customers. But money from the adult sites may only be part of the benefit of the scheme, according to Joe Stewart, senior intrusion analyst with Lurhq Corp., a provider of computer security services based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "It might purely be a way to collect credit card details," he said.
.
The ring also has been used to run a version of a scheme for collecting credit card information from unwary consumers that has been called the "PayPal scam," in which people get e-mail messages that purport to come from PayPal, the online payments service, asking them to fill out a Web site form with account information.
.
By hiding behind a such ring of hijacked machines, the originator of a mass e-mail can cloak his identity. The covert network of porn machines also helps purveyors of pornography and spam overcome one of their biggest problems: getting shut down by Internet service providers who receive complaints about the raunchy material. The web of front machines hides the identity of the true server, so "there's no individual computer to shut down," Smith said. "We're dealing with somebody here who is very clever."
.
Stewart of Lurhq said that the ring was troubling, not because of what it is being used for now, but what it might be used for in the future.
.
It is unclear precisely how the program gets into computers. Smith said that he believed that the delivery vehicle was a variant on the worm known as "sobig," which is capable of installing software on target computers.
.
Stewart, a computer virus expert, said he had seen no evidence that the sobig virus is the culprit, and was looking at other mechanisms for delivery. He said that because a large number of infected computers get their Internet service from America Online, he suspected that the hackers might be sending the program through a popular program like AOL Instant Messenger.
.
Neither Smith nor Stewart has found a simple way to tell whether a computer is infected. Smith said that as word of the rogue program - technically, a reverse proxy server - gets out, antivirus companies will quickly publish updates to their products to find and disable the software. Also, people can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, he said. The program does not affect the Apple Macintosh line of computers or computers running variants of the Unix operating system.
.
The computer ring is the latest in an evolution of attacks that allow creators of spam and illicit computer schemes to use other people's computers as their accomplices. For several years, senders of spam have relied upon a vestigial element of the Internet mail infrastructure known as "open relay" to use Internet servers as conduits for their spam.
.
As network administrators have gradually shut down the open relay networks, spam senders have used the sobig virus and others to plant similar capabilities on PC machines. Recent waves of spam have been sent through those hijacked machines. But this appears to be the first viral infection that causes target computers to display whole Web sites, Smith said.
.
An official of a company that pays Web site owners for referring users to pornographic sites said that he was surprised to hear that one of his clients might be using a ring of hijacked computers to advertise porn sites.
.
"This is the first I have heard about it," wrote the executive, who asked that he not be named, in response to questions sent via Instant Messenger. He said he would investigate the matter and if the details were confirmed, he would "kill his account." He declined to name the client, who is Russian, but said "I have known this guy for about five months and never had a problem with him."
.
The New York Times More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have had their computers hijacked by hackers and turned into virtual hosts for pornographic Web sites.
.
The enslaved computers apparently are chosen by the hackers because they are linked by high-speed connections to the Internet. The PCs are loaded with a software program that displays explicit Web pages advertising for-pay adult sites and offers to sign visitors up as customers.
.
Unless the owner of the hijacked computer is technologically sophisticated, the activity is likely to go unnoticed. The program, which only downloads the pornographic material briefly to the usurped computer in order to upload it to visitors, is invisible to the computer's owner. The hackers operating the ring use each computer in their network for only a few minutes at a time, rotating through a large number of computers rapidly.
.
Some of the computers also send spam e-mail messages to drum up traffic to the sites.
.
"Here people are sort of involved in the porno business and don't even know it," said Richard Smith, a computer researcher who has been studying the phenomenon since he first saw signs of it earlier this month. Smith said he believed the ring could be traced back to Russian spam senders.
.
The creator of the ring gets money from the adult sites for signing up new customers. But money from the adult sites may only be part of the benefit of the scheme, according to Joe Stewart, senior intrusion analyst with Lurhq Corp., a provider of computer security services based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "It might purely be a way to collect credit card details," he said.
.
The ring also has been used to run a version of a scheme for collecting credit card information from unwary consumers that has been called the "PayPal scam," in which people get e-mail messages that purport to come from PayPal, the online payments service, asking them to fill out a Web site form with account information.
.
By hiding behind a such ring of hijacked machines, the originator of a mass e-mail can cloak his identity. The covert network of porn machines also helps purveyors of pornography and spam overcome one of their biggest problems: getting shut down by Internet service providers who receive complaints about the raunchy material. The web of front machines hides the identity of the true server, so "there's no individual computer to shut down," Smith said. "We're dealing with somebody here who is very clever."
.
Stewart of Lurhq said that the ring was troubling, not because of what it is being used for now, but what it might be used for in the future.
.
It is unclear precisely how the program gets into computers. Smith said that he believed that the delivery vehicle was a variant on the worm known as "sobig," which is capable of installing software on target computers.
.
Stewart, a computer virus expert, said he had seen no evidence that the sobig virus is the culprit, and was looking at other mechanisms for delivery. He said that because a large number of infected computers get their Internet service from America Online, he suspected that the hackers might be sending the program through a popular program like AOL Instant Messenger.
.
Neither Smith nor Stewart has found a simple way to tell whether a computer is infected. Smith said that as word of the rogue program - technically, a reverse proxy server - gets out, antivirus companies will quickly publish updates to their products to find and disable the software. Also, people can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, he said. The program does not affect the Apple Macintosh line of computers or computers running variants of the Unix operating system.
.
The computer ring is the latest in an evolution of attacks that allow creators of spam and illicit computer schemes to use other people's computers as their accomplices. For several years, senders of spam have relied upon a vestigial element of the Internet mail infrastructure known as "open relay" to use Internet servers as conduits for their spam.
.
As network administrators have gradually shut down the open relay networks, spam senders have used the sobig virus and others to plant similar capabilities on PC machines. Recent waves of spam have been sent through those hijacked machines. But this appears to be the first viral infection that causes target computers to display whole Web sites, Smith said.
.
An official of a company that pays Web site owners for referring users to pornographic sites said that he was surprised to hear that one of his clients might be using a ring of hijacked computers to advertise porn sites.
.
"This is the first I have heard about it," wrote the executive, who asked that he not be named, in response to questions sent via Instant Messenger. He said he would investigate the matter and if the details were confirmed, he would "kill his account." He declined to name the client, who is Russian, but said "I have known this guy for about five months and never had a problem with him."
.
The New York Times