﻿ 'Operation Bot Roast' nets million-strong botnet operation | ZDNet

'Operation Bot Roast' nets million-strong botnet operation

Summary: Law enforcement authorities today announced the arrest of three men accused of using a million-strong botnet of hijacked computers for spam-related crime.


The FBI said its "Operation Bot Roast" identified more than one million victim computer IP addresses being used in criminal activity.


"The FBI is working with our industry partners, including the Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University, to notify the victim owners of the computers. Through this process the FBI may uncover additional incidents in which botnets have been used to facilitate other criminal activity," according to a statement from the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

The FBI said botnets, which have been used in massive distributed denial-of-service attacks, "are a growing threat to national security, the national information infrastructure, and the economy."

Details on the arrests:

  • Jason Michael Downey of Covington, Kentucky, is charged with using botnets to send a high volume of traffic to intended recipients to cause damage by impairing the availability of such systems.

* Graphic above from Computer Knowledge's description of how a botnet works.

Topics: Government US, Hardware



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  • Again , Ye , I ask what is your take on the botnets ?

    You didn't answer me before . So now I ask again . What is your take on the Microsoft botnet ? Remember this is only one botnet taken down , most assuredly , there are more botnets . Remember this is a windows specific threat .
    • This is s stupid People threat

      Windows machines are targeted because there is more... nobody including criminal is interested a toy. So go back to your Mactel fire up bootcamp and continue to use windows in secret.

      Behind every mac there is a sheep who don't get it.
      • WRONG again , you people swear that I use a Mactel .

        It's a PPC PowerMac . Even if I could run Windows on this PPC Mac , I wouldn't . So take your statements and shove it Mectron .
        • Phase 1

          • incorrect diagnosis

            Denial is a condition where you are smart and informed enough to understand the issues, and choose to ignore the evidence around you.

            So that is 2 strikes...
          • hum...

            your right you cannot be in denial. because your miss 2 out of 2. Not Smart and obviously not informed.

            So i guess your just plain stupid.
          • "your" versus "you're"

            Nothing better than grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes riddling a post about intelligence. Thanks for the laugh.
          • I award you zero points...

            I can't really speak to the median intelligence of the Mac user. All I know is I have degrees in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering, Plasma Physics, Astrophysics, Molecular Biology and Neurobiology and I like Macs. Sure OS9 was an abomination (or perhaps we should just call it "An Error of Type 2,") but OSX is a pretty solid UNIX-variant.
        • go away!!!!

          only technical ppl should post here. not mac users.
      • But ZDNet bloggers disagree

        Adrian Kingsley-Hughes thinks that 10 million iPhones would make an enticing target for malware writers (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=497). There are well over three-times that many Macintosh users, so why wouldn't hackers target such a large group of potential bots?

        The percentage argument only held water when the Mac market was much smaller. Now, it's sinking faster than the Titanic. I suggest you reality deniers go up on deck -- they're playing very nice music for you.
        • 670 Millions

          That is the number of windows PCs VS.... Tadada! 30 millions Macs

          now let see if i am a crook wich only motive is fast and easy money.. witch platform will i hack?

          Also if i am in the market for a PC... what will i choose.... a PC with a choice of 1000's of parts in every pric range or a Mac with 1 choice only and artificially locked up by the sole vendor?
          • re: 670 millions

            Yeah I guess you are right , Windows beats the Mac hands down , when it comes to catching hundreds of thousands of viruses .
          • Numbers...

            The numbers of cockroaches in earth far exceeds the number of human beings. Does this mean they are a higher life form?

            Are you a cockroach?
          • LOL

            More than abit egocentric to assume that you are, in fact, a higher life form than a cockroach. The ultimate judge is nature, and they have been around longer than we have and will probably be here still when we are gone.
    • WHy would anyone waste time on A Mac bot net.

      I meaN come on 107 users in all of North AMerica wouldn't make much of a net...
      • You so stupid .

        Perhaps because they can't create a Mac botnet . No_Ax please learn to count , you do yourself a great injustice with such stupid rants .
        • oops your right, its 97 uses.

          • Whatever you say neanderthal thinker . now grow up will you shill .<NT>

          • neanderthal?

            that whould be a company who took more then 12 years discover that a mouse can have more then 1 button!
          • Actually...

            It was a company that took 12 years to decide it's users might be able to use more than one mouse button. Not sure if they were right...