.Wage Cyberwar Against Hamas, Surrender Your PC
A group of Israeli students and would-be cyberwarriors have developed a program that makes it easy for just about anyone to start pounding on pro-Hamas websites. But using this "Patriot" software, to join in the online fight, means handing over control of your computer to the Israeli hacker group.
"While you're running their program, they can do whatever they want with your computer," Mike La Pilla, manager of malicious code operations at Verisign iDefense, the electronic security firm.
The online collective "Help Israel Win" formed in late December, as the current conflict in Gaza erupted. "We couldn't join the real combat, so we decided to fight Hamas in the cyber arena," "Liri," one the group's organizers, tells Danger Room.
So they created a simple program, supposedly designed to overload Hamas-friendly sites like qudsnews.net and palestine-info.info. In recent years, such online struggles have become key components in the information warfare that accompanies traditional, bomb-and-bullets conflicts. Each side tries to recruit more and more people -- and more and more computers -- to help in the network assaults. Help Israel Win says that more than 8,000 people have already downloaded and installed its Patriot software.
On websites in Hebrew, English, Spanish, French, and Russian, and Portugese, Help Israel Win doesn't say much about how the program functions -- only that it "unites the computer capabilities of many people around the world. Our goal is to use this power in order to disrupt our enemy's efforts to destroy the state of Israel. The more support we get, the more efficient we are!"
Analysis from iDefense and the SANS Institute, however, reveals that computer users put their PCs at risk, when they run the Patriot software. The program connects a computer to one of a number of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers. Once the machine is linked up, Help Israel Win can order it to do just about anything.
The Patriot program does something "fishy," SANS Institute security specialist Bojan Zdrnja observes, by retrieving "a remote file and sav[ing] it on the local machine as TmpUpdateFile.exe." That could easily be a "trojan," Zdrnja adds -- a program that sneaks malicious code onto a computer.
"While at the moment it does not appear to do anything bad (it just connects to the IRC server and sites there – there also appeared to be around 1000 machines running this when I tested this) the owner can probably do whatever he wants with machines running this," Zdrnja writes.
Liri, with Help Israel Win, concedes that "the Patriot code could be used as a trojan. However, "practically it is not used as such, and will never be."
"The update option is used to fix bugs in the client, and not to upload any malicious code... never have and never will," Liri adds. "The project will close right after the war is over, and we have given a fully functional uninstaller to [remove] the application."
It's also unclear how much the Patriot program is really helping the Israeli side in the online information war.
iDefense's La Pilla has been monitoring Help Israel Win's IRC servers for days. "They didn't make us download and install anything. Didn't make us [attack] anybody. I was basically just sitting idle on their network." As of now, the group's pro-Hamas targets remain online. Meanwhile, Help Israel Win has had to shift from web site to web site, as they come under attack from unknown assailants.
Wired
"While you're running their program, they can do whatever they want with your computer," Mike La Pilla, manager of malicious code operations at Verisign iDefense, the electronic security firm.
The online collective "Help Israel Win" formed in late December, as the current conflict in Gaza erupted. "We couldn't join the real combat, so we decided to fight Hamas in the cyber arena," "Liri," one the group's organizers, tells Danger Room.
So they created a simple program, supposedly designed to overload Hamas-friendly sites like qudsnews.net and palestine-info.info. In recent years, such online struggles have become key components in the information warfare that accompanies traditional, bomb-and-bullets conflicts. Each side tries to recruit more and more people -- and more and more computers -- to help in the network assaults. Help Israel Win says that more than 8,000 people have already downloaded and installed its Patriot software.
On websites in Hebrew, English, Spanish, French, and Russian, and Portugese, Help Israel Win doesn't say much about how the program functions -- only that it "unites the computer capabilities of many people around the world. Our goal is to use this power in order to disrupt our enemy's efforts to destroy the state of Israel. The more support we get, the more efficient we are!"
Analysis from iDefense and the SANS Institute, however, reveals that computer users put their PCs at risk, when they run the Patriot software. The program connects a computer to one of a number of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers. Once the machine is linked up, Help Israel Win can order it to do just about anything.
The Patriot program does something "fishy," SANS Institute security specialist Bojan Zdrnja observes, by retrieving "a remote file and sav[ing] it on the local machine as TmpUpdateFile.exe." That could easily be a "trojan," Zdrnja adds -- a program that sneaks malicious code onto a computer.
"While at the moment it does not appear to do anything bad (it just connects to the IRC server and sites there – there also appeared to be around 1000 machines running this when I tested this) the owner can probably do whatever he wants with machines running this," Zdrnja writes.
Liri, with Help Israel Win, concedes that "the Patriot code could be used as a trojan. However, "practically it is not used as such, and will never be."
"The update option is used to fix bugs in the client, and not to upload any malicious code... never have and never will," Liri adds. "The project will close right after the war is over, and we have given a fully functional uninstaller to [remove] the application."
It's also unclear how much the Patriot program is really helping the Israeli side in the online information war.
iDefense's La Pilla has been monitoring Help Israel Win's IRC servers for days. "They didn't make us download and install anything. Didn't make us [attack] anybody. I was basically just sitting idle on their network." As of now, the group's pro-Hamas targets remain online. Meanwhile, Help Israel Win has had to shift from web site to web site, as they come under attack from unknown assailants.
Wired
posted by madtom at 3:22 PM
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