Chuck Norris botnet karate-chops routers hard

[Earth Bound Misfit]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9159758/Chuck_Norris_botnet_karate_chops_routers_hard?taxonomyId=17&pageNumber=1

DG News Service - If you haven't changed the default password on your home router, you may be in for an unwanted visit from Chuck Norris -- the Chuck Norris botnet, that is.

Discovered by Czech researchers, the botnet has been spreading by taking advantage of poorly configured routers and DSL modems, according to Jan Vykopal, the head of the network security department with Masaryk University's Institute of Computer Science in Brno, Czech Republic.

The malware got the Chuck Norris moniker from a programmer's Italian comment in its source code: "in nome di Chuck Norris," which means "in the name of Chuck Norris." Norris is a U.S. actor best known for his martial arts films such as "The Way of the Dragon" and "Missing in Action."

Security experts say that various types of botnets have infected millions of computers worldwide to date, but Chuck Norris is unusual in that it infects DSL modems and routers rather than PCs.

snip

Because the Chuck Norris botnet lives in the router's RAM, it can be removed with a restart.

Users who don't want to be infected can mitigate the risk -- the simplest way of doing this is by using a strong password on the router or modem. Users can also address the problem by keeping their firmware up-to-date and by disabling remote-access services.

[hobbit709]

1. Anyone that leaves the settings of "admin" and "password"

Deserves what happens. That's the first thing I did when setting up my router.

[MyNameGoesHere]

2. Well believe this or not

only 10% of the population understands how to setup a router. The other 90% just use it out of the box. So really did you really want to say that all those millions of people deserve this? Hey I got an idea. Let's get on the manufactures and the perpetrators of these crimes and hold them responsible.

MAYBE you should have said Any one that manufactures a router that doesn't force password compliance deserves to be sued? And we should find the owners of this bot and throw them in jail for YEARS not months. I like 1 year for every 1000 infections.

[hobbit709]

3. When everything else fails, THEN read the instructions first.

Every router I've set up has this in the instructions.

99+% of problems are caused by Human 1.0 Interface