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Responding to Botnets • Chapter 12
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2. We need more white-hat organization and communication between
security professionals.
3. If you practice good security practices, odds are you won’t be joining
a botnet.
Education about keeping computers safe has always been a problem in
security, and we would like to see more done there. One obvious challenge is
the world of home computers hooked up to broadband DLS and cable con-
nections (see the spamhaus site at www.spamhaus.org/statistics/networks.lasso
for grim statistics). We aren’t going to say much more about that here, but of
course this book is part of the solution as it should help educate the IT public
about the botnet threat. It would not hurt if IT managers would emphasize
training for IT professionals in security.
Organization and communication between security professionals is cru-
cial.There is not enough communication about botnets in many spheres,
including academia, professional groups, security-related businesses, and the
white-hats actually fighting botnets. Informal and formal discussion venues
are needed. Basic meta-problems exist, like who is authorized to know certain
kinds of data. Another problem is that academics often cannot get relevant
and useful data for study simply because of security or privacy concerns.
Often, there is a very real problem that security people may need data but are
“simply not be in the loop,” because they don’t now how to get in the loop.
Our point is simple.Yes, botnets may evolve, but so will defensive mea-
sures.This doesn’t mean we should give up. Our defensive measures and prac-
tices are well known. We can probably stop the average Microsoft host from
being infected. We simply must put our defensive measures into practice and
at the same time do a better job of communication about problems.