December 29, 2009

Another Win for the Good Guys: Bye Bye Mega-D Botnet

I just read this great piece of news over at the Sunbelt Software Blog about a top 10 botnet. The botnet, called Mega-D, was said to have 250,000 bots which has been responsible for nearly 12 percent of the world spam. Wow, this is a great win.

The takedown was coordinated by a researcher at FireEye who working with others in the industry and Internet Service Providers, provided U.S. law enforcement with the information needed for the shut down.

Kudos to the FireEye team and others involved on this win! Keep fighting the good fight.

Check out the Sunbelt Blog entry here.

December 18, 2009

Satellite Sniffing Software Used to Monitor Drone Video

According to the New York Times, insurgents in Iraq are using cheap satellite sniffing software to monitor the video feed coming from Drone fighter airplanes. This was discovered when laptops from captured insurgents were analyzed. The software they used is called Sky Grabber and costs only $26. It was designed to download music and movies off of satellite transmissions.

What's very disappointing with all this is that the Drones are not using encryption to secure the video feed. I've heard some reports that they aren't equipped to use encryption which if that's the case it's shameful. I don't see any good reason why we would want the insurgents to see the video data showing what the Drones are seeing. C'mon encrypt the data people!

Article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/middleeast/18drones.html?scp=1&sq=drone&st=cse