http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit
Excerpts:
1) A rootkit is software that enables continued privileged access to a computer while actively hiding its presence from administrators by subverting standard operating system functionality or other applications. The term
rootkit is a
concatenation of
"root" (the traditional name of the privileged account on
Unix operating systems) and the word "kit" (which refers to the software components that implement the tool). The term "rootkit" has negative connotations through its association with malware.
[1]
2) Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal
In 2005, Sony BMG published CDs with copy protection and digital rights management software called Extended Copy Protection, created by software company First 4 Internet. The software included a music player but silently installed a rootkit which limited the user's ability to access the CD.[10]
Software engineer Mark Russinovich, who created the rootkit detection tool RootkitRevealer, discovered the rootkit on one of his computers.[1] The ensuing scandal raised the public's awareness of rootkits.[11]
To cloak itself, the rootkit hid from the user any file starting with "$sys$". Soon after Russinovich's report, malware appeared which took advantage of that vulnerability of affected systems.[1]
One BBC analyst called it a "public relations nightmare."[12] Sony BMG released patches to uninstall the rootkit, but it exposed users to an even more serious vulnerability.[13] The company eventually recalled the CDs. In the United States, a class-action lawsuit was brought against Sony BMG.[14]
Modern rootkits do not elevate access,[2] but rather are used to make another software payload undetectable by adding stealth capabilities.
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/60120.html
Excerpt:
Ron Paul Campaign Swept Up in Botnet Spam Scandal
11/01/07 3:16 PM PT
Republican presidential contender Ron Paul has stood out more for his campaign's Web presence than for his poll numbers, which usually peg him as a long-shot candidate. A wave of spam has been spotted, however, that associates the candidate's name with an army of hijacked computers known as a "botnet." Is it the work of a Paul supporter or an attempt to discredit the candidate?
Presidential candidate and Texas congressman Ron Paul has an ardent following of tech-savvy supporters -- at least one of which may have employed the use of hijacked PCs from around the world to spread pro-Paul spam. Several security
researchers have noted a blast of spam e-mail messages sent earlier this week purporting to support Paul's bid for the Republican Presidential nomination.
Excerpt:
Are botnets run by spy agencies?
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2008-05-12 12:46.
A recent story today about discussions for an
official defense Botnet in the USA prompted me to post a question I’ve been asking for the last year. Are some of the world’s botnets secretly run by intelligence agencies, and if not, why not?
Some estimates suggest that up to 1/3 of PCs are secretly part of a
botnet. The main use of botnets is sending spam, but they are also used for DDOS extortion attacks and presumably other nasty things like identity theft.
But consider this — having remote control of millions of PCs, and a large percentage of the world’s PCs seems like a very tempting target for the world’s various intelligence agencies. Most zombies are used for external purposes, but it would be easy to have them searching their own disk drives for interesting documents, and sniffing their own LANs for interesting unencrypted LAN traffic, or using their internal state to get past firewalls.
http://news.techworld.com/security/3252663/anonymous-uses-30000-pc-strong-botnet-in-wikileaks-campaign/
Excerpt:
Anonymous uses 30,000 PC strong botnet in Wikileaks campaign
Volunteers joined by malware controlled systems to take down payment sites
By Robert McMillan
Published: 13:20 GMT, 09 December 10
PayPal's website was hit late Wednesday by two
botnets as online activists continued their web attacks on companies that have severed their relationships with Wikileaks.
The activists have recruited volunteers, who have banded their computers into a distributed denial of service (DDoS) botnet, but they are also using hacked machines to carry out these attacks, said Sean-Paul Correll of threat researcher Panda Security.
"Today we observed over 3,000 computers in the voluntary botnet, but we also have knowledge of a 30k node botnet," he said.
http://www.malwarehelp.org/malware_removal_download.html
Excerpt:
E2TakeOut – E2TakeOut removes the E2Give and PTech malware, a program that tracks where a user browses, from your system.
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=181512.0
Excerpt:
Ptech, though known by FBI Bin Laden Unit Chief (later whistleblower) Robert Wright to be headed by a major Al Qaeda financier, and funded by Stephens’ former BCCI colleagues, was placed in charge of software management at every critical US Government agency- Defense, State, Justice, Energy, Transportation, the White House itself.
Ptech and a quasi government entity named MITRE, utilized PROMIS software to create the FAA’s National Airspace System, in control of operations on 911.
http://wakeup2010.blogspot.com/2010/07/unisys-total-awareness-rolls-out.html Excerpt:
*** Note – In 1997, IBM joined with a small new firm named Ptech, to create the “Unified Modeling Language” UML as the common parlance for integrated software coding.
Ptech, though known by FBI Bin Laden Unit Chief (later whistleblower) Robert Wright to be headed by a major Al Qaeda financier, and funded by Stephens’ former BCCI colleagues, was placed in charge of software management at every critical US Government agency- Defense, State, Justice, Energy, Transportation, the White House itself.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Unified-Modeling-Language-User-Guide/Grady-Booch/e/9780321267979
Excerpt:
Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh, and Ivar Jacobson are the original designers of the Unified Modeling Language and three of the most widely known names in the field of software engineering. Accomplished authors, they are recognized worldwide for many significant contributions to the development of object technology, including the Booch Method, the Object Modeling Technique (OMT), and the Objectory (OOSE) Process. Booch and Rumbaugh work at IBM, and Jacobson is an independent consultant.
http://www.channelingreality.com/Technowar/PROMIS-PTECH.htm
Excerpt:Yassin al-Qadi, a Saudi multimillionaire. His lawyers will later claim he has no terrorism ties and had only a passing involvement with BMI and liquidated his investment in it in 1996. However, another company operating from the same office as BMI is called Kadi International Inc. and lists its president as al-Qadi. Al-Qadi is also a major investor in the suspect computer company Ptech (see
1994;
1999-After October 12, 2001). Al-Qadi and BMI head Biheiri have financial dealings with Yaqub Mirza, a Pakistani who manages a group of Islamic charities in Virginia known as the SAAR network (see
July 29, 1983). These charities will be raided in March 2002 on suspicions of terrorism ties (see
March 20, 2002). Shortly after 9/11, the US will officially declare al-Qadi a terrorist financier (see
October 12, 2001).
http://globaljihad.net/view_page.asp?id=1734
Excerpt:
In an interview shortly after The 9/11, Yassin Al-Qadi boosted “I have also met with US Vice President and former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in Jeddah [Saudi Arabia] when he came for a lecture organized by the Dallah Group (a group of rich businessmen in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, known as the ‘Golden Chain’ and was involved in financing radical Islamic groups in Bosnia - see also -BIF-).
The US had named Yassin Al-Qadi, on 10/12/2001, a supporter of terrorism and froze his assets.
On 06/25/2005, after international pressure, the Swiss authorities decided to nominate an investigating judge to check whether Yassin Al-Qadi violated the Swiss law regarding money transactions. On 12/24/2007, the Swiss federal prosecutor exonerated him of all charges.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14418
Excerpt:
Ptech: Not Your Average Software FirmPtech was founded in Quincy, Mass. in 1994 and by 1996 had secured a contract with DARPA to help transfer commercial software methodologies to the defense sector.[12] In 1997, it gained security clearance to bid on sensitive military contracts and bid on work for a range of other government agencies.[13] Within four years Ptech had built up a stable of clients that would make any third-party software vendor green with envy. From the inner sanctum of the White House to the headquarters of the FBI, from the basement of the FAA to the boardroom of IBM, some of the best-secured organizations in the world running on some of the most protected servers housing the most sensitive data welcomed Ptech into their midst. Ptech was given the keys to the cyber kingdom to build detailed pictures of these organizations, their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and to show how these problems could be exploited by those of ill intent. For all of its incredible success, however, many of the firm's top investors and employees were men with backgrounds that should have been raising red flags at all levels of the government.
The firm was founded on $20 million of startup money, $5 million of which was provided by Yassin al-Qadi[14], a wealthy and well-connected Saudi businessman who liked to brag about his acquaintance with Dick Cheney.[15] He also had connections to various Muslim charities suspected of funding international terrorism.[16] In the wake of 9/11 he was officially declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. government and his assets were frozen.[17] At the time, Ptech's owners and senior management denied that al-Qadi had any involvement with the company other than his initial investment, but the FBI now maintains they were lying and that in fact al-Qadi continued investing millions of dollars in the company through various fronts and investment vehicles. [18] Company insiders told FBI officials that they were flown to Saudi Arabia to meet Ptech's investors in 1999 and that al-Qadi was introduced as one of the owners.[19] It has also been reported that Hussein Ibrahim, Ptech's chief scientist, was al-Qadi's representative at Ptech[20] and al-Qadi's lawyers have admitted that al-Qadi's representative may have continued to sit on Ptech's board even after 9/11.[21]
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012705_ptech_pt2.shtml
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