Fatal System Error 104
brothke writes "As computing and technology has evolved, so too have the security threats correspondingly evolved. The classic Yankee Doodle virus of 1989 did minimal damage, all while playing a patriotic, albeit monotone song. In 2010, aggressive malware now executes in stealth mode, running in the background with an oblivious end-user, and antivirus software that can’t detect it." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.
Cybercrimes have evolved using increasingly sophisticated techniques, and the resulting financial losses are staggering. Many criminal cyber gangs are well organized and resourceful and their ability to recover after new defenses have been deployed make it a challenge for those on the right side of the law.
| Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet | |
| author | Joseph Menn |
| pages | 304 |
| publisher | PublicAffairs |
| rating | 8/10 |
| reviewer | Ben Rothke |
| ISBN | 978-1586487485 |
| summary | Non-fiction cyber-thriller with super analytical advice |
Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet is an excellent book billed as a non-fiction cyber-thriller, and describes the cyber gangs who operate on the Internet. Author Joseph Menn, a cyber security reporter for the Financial Times, takes the reader into the inner operations of today's cyber-criminal, who use the Internet as their personal mint.
While Willie Sutton never really said that the reason he robbed banks is because that's where the money is; the truth is that today's cyber criminal does know where the money is, and its address is the Internet. They use the net as a means to steal and extort money from businesses and individuals.
The book's protagonist is Barrett Lyon, a highly skilled technical engineer and entrepreneur, who founded companies such as Prolexic, BitGravity and 3Crowd. It was at Prolexic where Lyon developed the software used to fend off the DoS attacks that were bringing some of his client's networks to a standstill.
Lyon, along with the other major character in the book, Andy Crocker, a British policeman, were the 1-2 punch that resulted in the prosecution of a Russian cyber criminal. The fact that the prosecution took place via the Russian judicial system was a surprise to everyone. What was unusual about the prosecution is that criminals in Russia and Eastern Europe often operate with the assistance of corrupt political and police forces. Even though the evidence against the defendant was significant, the ability to secure a guilty verdict was far from a sure thing.
Much of the book deals with Lyon and his working relationship with BetCRIS, a company offering online gambling services, including sports betting, online casino games, online bingo and mobile gambling.
BetCRIS is an off-shore company, operating in the safe havens of the Republic of Costa Rica. In 2003, at the height of the DoS attacks, the BetCRIS website was down for nearly a month. With tens of millions of dollars of gambling revenue at stake, BetCRIS management were desperate for a solution, and they reached out to Lyon.
While Lyon created a first-generation solution to stop the early DoS attacks, the book details how the attackers were able to get around those countermeasures, and how it turned into a cat and mouse game of futility, where Lyon would create a fix, only to be beguiled by a new attack.
In the book, Menn writes about many of the major players in the Internet criminal world. He spends a good amount of time writing about the infamous Russian Business Network (RBN). He notes that little true business was carried out via the RBN; rather it was a front for Internet-based criminal activities in Russia.
Menn does get into some technical details, but not so much so to confuse a non-technical reader. He covers topics such as botnets, DoS and DDoS attacks, cyberwarfare, cyber espionage, and the difficulty in prosecuting the perpetrators.
Menn notes that there are many reasons why Russia and in Eastern Europe are ground zero for cybercriminals. The educational institutions there provide a good source of technical training; combined that with the fact that legitimate job opportunities are often quite limited. Add to the fact that political and law enforcement officials often ignore the cyber attacks again the rich capitalists of the US, the difficulty and challenges with jurisdiction, and you have a perfect storm for the creation of a sophisticated cyber criminal element. Finally, there is a long and established culture of corruption in Russia and in Eastern Europe that adds to the problem.
There are two directions that Fatal System Error takes. The main part of the book is Menn's narrative, which takes up 11 of the book's 12 chapters. These 11 chapters take the reader on an enthralling ride into the inner workings of the cyber-criminal world. Fatal System Error is an enjoyable read on par books such as The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage and Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick.
Where the book truly stands out is in the final chapter Fixing What's Fixable, and is worth purchasing for that chapter alone. Menn displays his incredibly deep understanding of the underlying issues around computer security and why we are vulnerable. He suggests numerous pragmatic solutions to the crisis, and how to better secure the Internet and networks.
Some of the ideas include significantly greater budgets for information security, more liability against software developers who write insecure code, greater information sharing between the cybercrime agencies in the US and their counterparts in Russia, and more. His on-target analysis of what the US Government can and should do to increase the security of the Internet infrastructure is quite impressive.
Reading the narrative part of the book, many readers will likely be scared to death to connect their computers to the Internet, and to a limited degree, rightfully so. Even with Menn's balanced and compelling account of what transpired, the threat of identity theft and ease of how financial accounts are breached may be too much for some readers many to bear.
If corporate America and the US Government would take Menn's suggestions to heart on how to create a secure Internet infrastructure, many of those security concerns he wrote about could be obviated, and the cyber criminals of Eastern Europe would have to look for different work.
Additional pragmatic ideas that Menn suggests are to legalize and regulate online gambling, more funding to teach safer computing in schools, and for a complete re-engineering of the Internet, in order to build in the necessary security functionality which should have been in there in the first place. As part of the process to re-engineer the Internet, Menn suggests designs that create accountability into the Internet fabric.
Finally, Menn notes that many end-users are not blameless. By not educating themselves on how to securely use the Internet, they are setting themselves up to becoming victims. He writes that anyone that connects a computer to the Internet needs to have significant security vigilance to ensure that they don't make themselves a victim. It is 2010 and far too many people are still oblivious to the security threats. Many still naively believe that someone from Nigeria really does want to make them richer with tens of millions of dollars worth of gold from their deceased uncle.
Menn shows how the underlying infrastructure of the Internet is significantly more vulnerable than most people realize. Finally, what exacerbates the problem is that those doing the attacks are working much quicker than those who are trying to secure it.
One of Menn's criticisms is that the US Government spends a fraction of what it should on securing its critical technology infrastructure. Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet is the wake-up call that those in Washington, and those charged with IT need to wake up to. Unfortunately, it is likely those that truly need to read this book, will press the information security snooze button yet again.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re:No Impartial Book Reviews (Score:1, Insightful)
They're all favorable. Fucking Slashvertisements.
Maybe they can suck or straddle Yankee's Doodle.
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this site is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Uh, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, so they want to redesign the Internet because people don't want to learn how to identify a phishing site and can't understand that giving your account numbers to unverifiable strangers is a bad idea? No thanks. A fool and his money are soon parted and there's not much you're going to change about that. Also, I'm sure that "accountability" is a euphamism for "tracked everywhere you go even more than you are now". Seems to me they are trying to increase protection against petty criminals while drastically reducing protection against overzealous governments that want to censor.
Re:Uh, no (Score:4, Insightful)
Great, so they want to redesign the Internet because people don't want to learn how to identify a phishing site and can't understand that giving your account numbers to unverifiable strangers is a bad idea?
Oh please, I think Sony put an end to the delusion that only grandmas and morons are susceptible to phishing or malware. Allow me to give you an example which most people here won't be able to do detect instantaneously: zero-day exploit in Flash + rootkit + trojan. I run a tight ship like the next nerd, but my AV software still flags trojans that somehow make it onto my system from time to time, and those are only the ones that it CAN detect.
And yes, there are zealots who will undoubtedly say things like "Flash is for suckers" or "what do you expect with Windows?", but these people should consider the fact that (a) not everyone lives in caves, and (b) some people just have more important things to worry about, like losing their homes.
Re:Pedantic, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Reviewer confused about Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow it appears the book reviewer confused Slashdot for the Ladies Home Journal. Was it really necessary to use the "cyber" prefix 47 times? Really? Because we're so impressed when it's a cybergang, instead of just a gang.
One hopes the book isn't that bad...
Re:Uh, no (Score:3, Insightful)
"Great, so they want to redesign the Internet because people don't want to learn how to identify a phishing site and can't understand that giving your account numbers to unverifiable strangers is a bad idea?"
Uh, no. With MITM attacks, spoofing raised to a fine art, SSL hijacks of any number of diffeent methods, fake/spoofed/stolen certificates, it can be very, very hard to avoid making a mistake and trusting something you should not.
"No thanks. A fool and his money are soon parted and there's not much you're going to change about that."
Doh.
"Also, I'm sure that "accountability" is a euphamism for "tracked everywhere you go even more than you are now". Seems to me they are trying to increase protection against petty criminals while drastically reducing protection against overzealous governments that want to censor."
Yup. It's a fine line between security and oppression.
Re:Uh, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, so they want to redesign the Internet because people don't want to learn how to identify a phishing site and can't understand that giving your account numbers to unverifiable strangers is a bad idea?
Oh please, I think Sony put an end to the delusion that only grandmas and morons are susceptible to phishing or malware. Allow me to give you an example which most people here won't be able to do detect instantaneously: zero-day exploit in Flash + rootkit + trojan. I run a tight ship like the next nerd, but my AV software still flags trojans that somehow make it onto my system from time to time, and those are only the ones that it CAN detect.
And yes, there are zealots who will undoubtedly say things like "Flash is for suckers" or "what do you expect with Windows?", but these people should consider the fact that (a) not everyone lives in caves, and (b) some people just have more important things to worry about, like losing their homes.
Flash is known insecure software with a terrible track record, and I treat it as such. I obviously can't make others do the same but they're crazy not to. It undoubtedly helps that I am not using Windows (just why that helps is a separate debate). That to me is basic common sense combined with a few minutes of Googling. If that's the standard now for "living in a cave" then the standards these days are quite low. For your item "b" there, it's a lot easier to keep your home when some criminal hasn't drained your bank accounts for you.
It's not about Flash, Windows, living in caves, or having other concerns in life. No, those are all distractions from the actual issue, and you can tell because they're always said in the same irritated emotional tone. It's about two different mentalities. They come up in lots of otherwise unrelated issues including those that are much more political in nature. One mentality wants to look after its own interests and equip itself in order to protect itself. The other believes that is too much of a bother, not their problem, or otherwise is someone else's job. I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that big government of the "we know what's good for you" variety derives most of its existence from the latter because these people want someone to take care of them, almost like children.
So I secure my systems after teaching myself how to do so, and I study good practices. Another person thinks this is too much of a bother and goes with whatever vendor defaults his system came with because to him, security is that vendor's problem only. Guess who gets compromised? Which do you suppose is an easier target? It's not about time or any of those other excuses because you always have time for something you consider important. "I don't have time" is a cute way of saying "this is not a priority". It's about personal responsibility and whether you realize that no one wants to protect your interests quite as much as you do, that all the tools and information you need are out there. Do I have time to be personally responsible and take only the amount of risk I want to take instead of being helplessly dependent on someone else to protect me? Yes, I do have time for that, no caves required.
Fear and loathing in PC Town (Score:3, Insightful)
Hidden code...oooo....Stealth Mode executing..aahhhhh...Root kits ! *GAG*
I know we're talking about the common user here....
But drive a car with no regards and you get the same thing...an accident.
Get a mechanic, a good one that can show you the pratfalls and some fixes.
But if you drive like a fool and visit "those" sites you get what you get.
Get Acronis a re-image your ass every week....you'll be fine.
Re:Uh, no (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that there are sophisticated methods by which a determined adversary concentrating his efforts against a particular target might effect a compromise. However, if all compromises were of this type only, then ID theft would be a nearly unknown crime and botnets unheard-of. That's because an attack this effective and sophisticated does not easily lend itself to automation. Criminals can't compromise tens of thousands of machines or build large lists of account numbers that way. If the level of sophistication you mention were the bare minimum requirement to break the security of the average user, we'd have a global Heaven on Earth in terms of network security.
The vast, vast majority of phishing attacks are quite crude by comparison. They are crude because crude works. People fall for it, all the time. These simpler, less sophisticated attacks are easy to automate and send to thousands of users. When a criminal can send a simpler attack to many thousands, only a small percentage need to get suckered for him to profit immensely. This is where most of the problems are coming from, not dedicated personal efforts against specific targets that require a lot of manpower and expertise to execute. I think the latter is within the realm of statistical noise by comparison.
Security of the "be responsible for your own host and your own network because it's in your interests to prevent their compromise" doesn't lend itself to oppression. Security of the "we will be the central authority who will do everything for you" variety certainly does, not to mention it probably won't work. I think when it comes to security, it's perfectly reasonable to say "if you don't care, neither should we." It really doesn't take much to be a much harder target than the lowest-hanging fruit.
Re:Uh, no (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't be ridiculous. That's just ignorant.
Ubuntu users have found nasty viruses coming from screen savers in the OFFICIAL repository. Pretending that unix/linux solutions are inherently safe is about the same as sticking your head in the sand. The only reason they're safer is because people aren't that interested in exploiting the relatively few people who use them.
Like it or not, Windows is the premier operating system in the world, for personal computers. The average user is never going to be a linux nerd - the OS is unstable, and requires too much technical expertise with too little software support. You can deny that, but we all know it's true.
That said, there's absolutely no reason you can't run a secure Windows machine. The real issue is that most users aren't savvy enough to realize that security patches are IMPORTANT, and can't tell the difference between a legit virus scanner and, say, Paladin, or XP Antivirus Pro... Moving all of them to non-windows OS's overnight wouldn't fix that problem... not patching security holes, with everyone running linux, would just mean all of the virus-writing goons start targeting Linux.