Botnets - Computerphile

[@SK83RJOSH]

"You just described Windows 10" "This sounds like Windows 10" "Did you know this is Windows 10" "Windows 10"

[@s2pidmonkey]

The best modern day example of a botnet is Windows 10

[@NikolajLepka]

+Shaneequa Naynay and a vicious one at that

[@typicalhog]

+Shaneequa Naynay Really :\ Windows 10 is great :D

[@RezaAP]

More Sheharbano Khattak please.

[@ExaltedDuck]

A vector overlooked even by many security professionals is Adobe Acrobat Reader. When I was still a Windows user, when I upgraded from vista to 7, I refused to install acrobat reader, flash, and Java, and I switched from a Mozilla browser to chrome. Where malware infections were a monthly occurrence in my XP days and happened once in the 13-14 months I ran Vista, in almost 3 years of running win 7 as described above, I never had one infection.

[@mikemunns102]

any chance you could do a video about ransom-ware. Most of the viewers of this channel probably know about this threat, but it would be useful to get some professional opinions on the subject

[@onesimpleclik]

+Mike Munns my workmates android tablet got infected with ransom-ware. it locked down the entire operating system. i had to factory reset the device to remove the ransom-ware.

[@amicloud_yt]

+Mike Munns Seconded!

[@rapteakewl]

Too bad they didn't discuss the botnet topology.. its important to mention that if 1000 bots are attempting to connect with a single c&c they might ddos it. normally each x amount of bots (lets say 50) are "reporting" to a single computer, which also can be a part of the botnet and forwarding the the requests/responses onward, might be even to another node which is not the c&c.

[@k1ngjulien_]

Is it possible that the c&c is also controlled by another c&c, forming an even bigger botnet?

[@will16320]

It's hard to get depth in a 10 minute youtube video however i consider this an accurate overview.

[@bonesmalin]

Could you start putting links for the other videos at the end in the description for mobile user? :)

[@544608]

What about the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search ? Isn't it technically a botnet, even though users install it willingly?

[@TechyBen]

+Jason Cobb I think the term bot net applies when the user is unaware. But when the user chooses to use it, it is distributed computing. Though I'm no expert/authority.

[@yoshi314]

+Jason Cobb botnet membership is not by user's choice, and not for their benefit.

[@naota3k]

Ah I've been waiting for this one. You tease, Brady.

[@mvdmusicvideostorefreshthe3224]

That went over my head.

[@epowouid6715]

It's ok guys I have Avast

[@RMoribayashi]

The file sharing program Kazaa included in its Terms of Service the right to use your computer in a botnet. It's been while but I think it said that they had the right to use "any storage or computing that is not in use" and that it may be "used to serve advertising or other similar uses" (like DoS attacks).

[@MrRand0mMe]

Nice introductory video. Waiting for some more advanced topics.

[@Azivegu]

doesnt CERN also use a botnet to help crunch the data they get from their experiments? I also believe there are a few groups that calculate prime numbers and pi that also make use of botnets.

[@zaphodb777]

Some of the largest botnets in the world are running in the cloud, and on standard webservers, using pure PHP without the aid of SQL, or root access. But I am far beyond arguing that point.

[@astropgn]

In a natural world the best types of parasites are those who don't inflict any damage in the host. Malaria is a worst parasite than cold virus, because you can live normally with cold, there is only a few casualties compared to the entire population that is infected with the virus. This is one of the reasons that cold is more common than malaria. I think this is valid for the digital world. If you have a computer virus that constantly breaks the machine, or block the user of doing something (like those annoying adwares), it will be less common than another one does not do any harm to the host. We might be infected without even knowing and without ever wanting to do something about it, because it is not degrading our use in any way.

[@Chr0nalis]

This can actually be put to good use. Users could either voluntarily or 'voluntarily' donate CPU/GPU time slices to High performance compute tasks such as weather prediction, biological research and other simulations. It could work by the user registering their machine and at times when the cpu is idle the botnet could run a process or two which would load the machine by say... 10% which would be unnoticeable to the user.

[@MetsuryuVids]

Another way it can be used for good is distributed computing for scientifical research. Things like Folding at home, or SETI at home, and the likes.

[@gekquad116]

I'm not looking to disagree by any means because I had a near identical question of, "Are things like Folding at Home and B.I.O.N.I.C. truly botnets or are they just using distributed computing to solve a problem?" I suppose my question really becomes, do we only label ill intentioned distributed models as botnets or is it all distributed models?

[@MetsuryuVids]

Moovlin I wouldn't really call them botnets, but I would call botnets a form of distributed computing. I think "botnet" has a more malicious connotation, and it doesn't really apply to anything that is done non-maliciously, so I'd just call it distributed computing.

[@wonay]

there is also distributive computing for medical research. like protein folding.

[@Warrantti]

Computerphile Could you do video about how the tor network works?

[@MrKristian252]

Infected computers being set to a date to do an attack without a host server, is that a botnet? or is it "botoffline"?

[@N....]

Doesn't SETI use botnets that you can opt-in to?

[@pingpong1138]

Wouldn't distributed computing solutions like Boinc be technically a good botnet?

[@jonastoth7975]

+pingpong1138 if u infect a pc with malware to compute distributed yes. if user install software by themself, then not

[@pingpong1138]

+Jonas Toth it still fits just not malicious

[@CarterColeisInfamous]

But what if you have a distributed C&C and use RSA keys to sign orders then flood the network with valid orders when one node gets them

[@MarcelRobitaille]

So how does the browser automatically download and run the executable? I am assuming/hoping modern browsers have some protection against this.

[@LewisLetsPlay]

+Marcel Robitaille It doesn't need an Exe to execute, with unsecure programs such as out of date Java applets or Adobe Flash someone could just run commands directly in the applet itself, it just needs to be able to either save itself locally to your machine or just force you to keep the tab open. I don't know the logistics and delivery methods though, but I'm sure it is easy to get rid of this type of botnet, you just need to detect it in your computer.

[@Soulfyres]

You just described Windows 10

[@Soulfyres]

***** No actually, you don't have the option to fully turn it off at all :( Why do you think it's free? They make more money than they ever would selling your info rather than selling you it :(

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

***** Actually, Windows is the worst. And as for Windows 10 and serious gaming, those people that do serious gaming don't like Windows 10, because a lot of hardware still isn't supported with drivers for Windows 10, or the drivers are buggy or whatever, so they like to stay with Windows 7. Anyhow, since I am free from Windows or any other Microsoft software since 10 years (I don't game though), I can seriously say that you don't need Windows to make good use of a computer.

[@gameking008]

the infected computer could also be called a "Zombie"

[@imemyself2820]

I found tutorial videos all over KZbin how to set up these botnets. But YT dont really seem to care? People are doing this online, on video, in the open and dont fear any consequences. It's basically putting the fate of the world in the hands of a dozen teenagers.

[@jag831]

So a botnet is basically a collection of backdoored hosts?

[@BrentDeJong]

I think Prime95 would be considered a botnet, but not used for a bad purpose.

[@riendessus5793]

So interesting, so much to learn thank you!!!

[@DJDavid98]

Nice to see some diversity

[@OddlyTugs]

You can join a network of computers solving medical related tasks.

[@KraxedHD]

More videos like this please

[@TheCreator1197]

Someone should create a botnet that fixes the security vulnerabilities which the botnet used to assimilate that computer into itself. :-P

[@strafejump]

can you make a video about a more advance subject, such as phishing

[@khaldrogo9451]

Really cool! Thanks!

[@MarcelRobitaille]

Tor isn't perfect. If enough nodes are owned by the feds it is easy for them to figure out what you are doing.

[@BrokebackBob]

The BEST example in common use is Google and Android devices.

[@grassyclimer6853]

There are community grids for cancer research and climate info its kinda a botnet for good they can use ur processing power to save money buying high power systems and you can decide how much power ud like to give

[@A7iss]

actually i adored windows 10 gathering data , yes i dont trust microsoft but i have nothing to worry about even if the misuse my data i just want them to keep up ...

[@HackingVision]

some botnets can mine cypto currencys such as bitcoins ethrum etc. i have seen many botnets even down to botnets that use twitter as a c & c server very nice video.

[@6thex6663s]

this website is botnet. :^)

[@naboogom2733]

sup

[@George-lt6jy]

Lots of great ideas here. Hi fbi ;)

[@ugaaga198]

Too high level

[@jordanjohnson714]

Windows 10

[@megaelliott]

I propose we call them droidnets. The word robot comes from the Czech word 'robota' meaning "servtitude" or "forced labour", which I for one do not consider appropriate. We need to abandon our "slave owner" attitude as a species.

[@IsaacWilcove]

**cough** Windows 10 **cough**

[@mobind6479]

#EarlySquad

[@bpower2009]

prolly not second

[@joshuajurgensmeier4534]

1st to comment 1st in binary!

[@atmunn1]

probably not first

[@atmunn1]

+ATMunn or maybe i am ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)