Please do not take down the Sality botnet

Just to point to a couple of facts:-

1. From the same article:

"Why does every hacking and cyberscam story – real or fictional – seem to have a Russia connection?

In part, it is prejudice and laziness. The stereotype of the Russian hacker has become such a common media trope that it gets recycled again and again. It also offers a handy update for those looking for new ways to perpetuate the ‘Russian threat.’"

2. Following article line on FSB - anyone knows who hacked PCs of Iran nuke facility? If we judge on who had a reason - US - we shall assume that US have the same or even better hacker team than Russia [very clever OS hack that resulted in hardware malfunction at the nuke plant, thus significantly reducing its output - was covered in 2011].

3. I suspect that most of 'industry analysis' is funded by government agencies, directly or indirectly. So if the conclusion of 'industry analysis' would be that US accounts for 35 or 65 percent of global cybercrime revenue, then the next question would be - what the hell are the various government agencies doing and how effective do they spend government/taxpayers' money?

4. From the same article:

"However, a more basic answer is that a disproportionate number of Russians have worldclass math and computers skills, yet not the kind of jobs to use them legitimately. Although many firms in the industry are based in Russia, or else hire Russians, there is a pool of skilled but under-employed programmers who embrace the hacker world for fun, out of disillusion, or for profit."

Anyone can show me a skilled but under-employed programmer in Russia?

"Skilled but under-emplored programmer in Russia" is like Bigfoot [also known as sasquatch] - everyone heard about him/her, but noone saw. It is a legend...

But of course there are russians, americans, germans, brits, and other nations, which do quite some harm. I just do not think there is a legitimate way to define the winner.

Sorry for off-topic rambling, probably due to habit of enjoying fact-based debate, which resulted from my days in finance ;-))

I remember a case from some years back when some group (some AV group or something like that) took control over a major botnet by taking control over domains botnet would use in future for receiving updates/commands. The algorithm was pretty sophisticated as it generated dozens of new domains each day and was trying to contact them on random. E.g. generate 100 domains, try to contact 15 of them, if none responds wait a day. Statistically the bot would get its commands in a 2-3 days (I don't really remember exact numbers so this example might not add up). Well, in order to stop the botnet you'd need to register all available domains out of those 100. So, they were doing just that for some time. They practically blocked the owners operating on the botnet. But they couldn't destroy it. Because that would require manipulating with data on random peoples' computers without their consent which you simply can't (legally). And I think it should stay that way. So anyway, they left it be and owners took control back.

But what can be done? You have to run your operating system updated. Having AV software (which is quicker in updates and act as a prevention) doesn't hurt either. And as this is not a real option for a some time, this is a good way. You destroy it in illegal fashion. But no official organization can do that.

Yes, they're called lobbyists. And no large brown bags stuffed with $100 bills has been passed under the table. There is also no oil there.