Anatomy of a Botnet

What can IT people learn from your experience?
The network was infected because the company was running an unpatched version of Symantec’s antivirus software. There was a patch for the vulnerability that infected this computer, but this company’s IT staff didn't apply that patch and roll it out. The bot came in via a notebook that was used offsite, probably connected to someone’s home DSL and unprotected by a firewall, and brought back into the corporation. So the lessons are, convince users who take data offsite to be more careful and vigilant, and make patch management a priority. An unpatched system is like a wide-open door. You’d fix a broken outside door in your home, and you need to treat your corporate assets—and whatever’s protecting you from malware—the same.

An IT person needs to know what's happening on his network. You have to get a protocol analyzer, and you've got to learn what the protocols are and how they work. And you've got to learn enough so that you can recognize the kinds of things that aren't good. That was one of the reasons for the Webcast that I did for Microsoft on the art of debugging, using a network sniffer to isolate problems. (For more information, see "TechNet Webcast: The Art of Network Debugging (Level 200)," May 15, 2007, at http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/library/200705.mspx.) Once you see these kinds of things and see what's out there, the world kind of opens up, and you’re thinking, "Wow, I had no idea that's how that happened."

You can diagnose a lot of problems by watching that network traffic. You can tell whether the problem is something local to a system or something happening over the network. If you're going to debug or figure out what's going on or design a system that relies on more than one of these components, you've got to have knowledge that spans those components. The network is usually what spans them. In this industry, if you're not learning, you are falling behind very quickly. I don't want to fall behind. I want to keep growing, and keep learning, and keep doing new things.

Have you found that companies are doing a good job with their network security, or is this a deficiency?
We do what we know we need to do most of the time, but we're not diligent or vigilant about it, because there are always other fires to put out. Security is about spending money and effort and time to make sure nothing happens. How much should a company spend on its internal security? Where's the magic line where you've spent enough to make sure nothing happens? How do you convince the CFOs who don't understand the level of vulnerability that's there? How do you get them to say, "You know what, this is a good investment. We should spend it"? How do you get them to spend money to make sure that nothing happens?

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