"Hackers amass new zombie army."

September 15, 2000 1:43 PM

"Hackers amass new zombie army." When headlines go bad, part IX. Courtesy of MSNBC.
posted by smackfu (5 comments total)

God, deja vu. I just posted that link on my message board, then I came here and I wondered what I had just posted to. :)
posted by pnevares at 1:57 PM on September 15, 2000

While I realize that this is true, the news post still reeks of FUD to me.

It's just too damn vague, I think that's what bothers me, and it doesn't provide any comparitive numbers for Windows-, Mac-, or other OS-, based zombies.

At least it provides links to CERT. Perhaps I should get off my ass and lock down ye ol' gateway box at home...
posted by cCranium at 2:31 PM on September 15, 2000

Excuse me...
Is this MSNBC providing full coverage of security flaws in Unix/Linux?
Yeah, that's what I thought it was.

Linux Zombies, meet Microsoft Vampires.
It IS getting close to Halloween...
posted by wendell at 4:04 PM on September 15, 2000

Oh man, I didn't even see the msnbc part of the URI.

(hey, it's been a long day. :-)
posted by cCranium at 5:31 PM on September 15, 2000

Yeah, that's right, MSNBC would never report bad news about a partner. Really, they're pretty good about consistently reporting the good and the bad without much regard to the vendor. They run Hacks and Attacks, which is just as good as the offerings over at CNET/News.com, and the Bug of the Day Archive doesn't skimp on the Windows candidates.

The truth is that Linux exploits are the chief means of building dDOS zombies. There are some fundamental reasons for this, just as there are fundamental reasons why Microsoft mail software is the main target of virus writers these days.
posted by dhartung at 12:49 AM on September 16, 2000