FBI, partners dismantle Qakbot infrastructure
fbi.gov
fbi.gov
[1]: https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/28/top_malware_loaders/
That's pretty sweet that they healed hundreds of thousands of computers
And are you really going to try to sue the police for shutting down the lab and locking the door on their way out?
Are you implying that the property owner is liable because they neglected to lock the cellar, or because they weren't aware a crime was taking place there?
If the former, isn't that as clear an example of victim blaming as telling people to carry firearms/protection if they don't want to be sexually assaulted?
In a civil society, it is not the responsibility or duty of the victim to set up security measures to prevent themselves from being victimized. It is the responsibility and duty of the culprit to not commit those unlawful crimes in the first place.
Bringing the analogy back to security - who is guilty of a crime when a ransomware attack happens, the victim, or the criminal (who obtained unauthorized access, and used that access to perform extortion)?
If someone is running a meth lab out of your cellar for a year, and you don't notice the smell, the power bill, the people coming and going, at what point are you no longer able to claim ignorance? If your answer is: you can claim ignorance indefinitely, what is preventing someone from just letting a meth lab be run from their basement and taking cash on the side? If the police can't find the cash, you're just not guilty?
>It is not the responsibility of the victim to set up security measures to prevent themselves from being victimized.
It is ABSOLUTELY the responsibility of the "victim" to not create an environment that FACILITATES crime. If you leave a gun unsupervised and unlocked on your front step, and a neighbor kid "steals" the gun off your front steps and proceeds to shoot and kill their friend, you are going to jail despite you being the "victim" of theft. Your internet connection in this instance is the loaded gun when your systems are being used in DDoS attacks.
In fact, one of the most popular TV shows of all time had its finale specifically addressing the fact that a law needed to be made to discourage “bystanders” from actively ignoring crime.
With this statement you’re arguing past the person you’re responding to. If you are taking cash on the side to feign ignorance when the DEA comes squawking about the meth lab in your basement then you are clearly in the know.
Nobody is talking about negligence here. Your rebuttal is essentially “well victims can be blamed if they’re being negligent”. Yeah, sure, by definition they’re not just a victim, they’re a negligent individual. (I mean I’d even argue they can be blamed for less—I’m not one of those 100% the victim is always innocent types, but that’s a different topic.)
The original question is if you are honestly unaware (and not negligent) that your property is being used to commit a crime, are you culpable for the crime? The answer is a resounding “no”.
If someone hacks your PC and installs botnet software, and it evades your OS antivirus heuristics and protections because it’s a sophisticated root-kit, then no, you’re not culpable.
Ironic that you're doing what you accused me of. I didn't say the person was taking cash, I asked WHEN op would consider the person to be culpable. You literally took an entire discussion and clipped four words then made up a bunch of stuff I didn't actually say or even imply.
>The original question is if you are honestly unaware (and not negligent) that your property is being used to commit a crime, are you culpable for the crime? The answer is a resounding “no”.
That was NOT the original question. The original question was whether or not someone could sue the police for removing malware and patching their system. My example was the cops shutting down a meth lab and locking the door.
Be my guest attempting to sue, and be prepared to have to defend yourself in a court of law that you were truly unaware. That's going to be a VERY expensive proposition - so who in their right mind would even start down that path?
If the police enter your property without a warrant then sure. The potential presence of illegal activity does not grant the police special powers to skirt judicial process (unless there’s imminent danger to someone’s life or something, obviously). If the police unduly lock you out of your own property on the way out then doubly sure.
Obviously most people will be relieved that their machine no longer has malware on it (save willing participants, which is a different question altogether…). What would piss me off is not being notified, and not being given the chance to remediate myself (what if the police damage other pieces of property on the way and I could avoid the damage if I’m simply made aware), etc.
So let’s go back to the meth lab example: do you think it’s okay for the police to show up on your property unannounced in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping to silently shut down the meth lab without notifying you that they’re trespassing and then slap a lock on your basement door behind which you store your emergency cash, medical supplies, prescription drug refills, personal protection equipment, defensive firearms, etc. without leaving the keys or so much as a word?
Edit (two more things):
1. It’s possible someone might have been running a copy of the botnet for research purposes, so presumably this copy is not engaged in illicit activity and only installed on lab hardware. I wonder if the FBI’s program considered this scenario. Maybe they only targeted IPs involved in actual DDOS attacks? That’d be cool.
2. You can question something without implying it’s wrong. One can both believe the FBI is acting in a responsible and just way while also being curious how this would play out in court. The fervor in your responses seems slightly out of place considering the comment you’re responding to is simply raising a question.
Now, are judges sometimes too easy with warrants? Certainly. But this is definitely not the same as entering your house without a warrant, because the FBI did get a warrant. The warrant involves them promising to a judge under penalty of perjury that the Qakbot Uninstaller they are using makes no further changes and collects no additional data on any of the victim computers they are running on.
So, the FBI is aware of your concerns and is taking steps to alleviate them. Does that make you feel better?
What? Why such snide?
I am aware of what happened in this case. I was responding rhetorically to GGP since they were presenting an abstract scenario where the police show up and shut down the meth lab in your basement and then lock you out of your property on the way out… My goal was to highlight the cases where it is and isn’t okay for the police to do whatever they want. It’s not clear if GGP is aware that there are in fact restrictions on what the police can do on your private property in the US. And that even with a warrant there are limits on how the warrant is conducted.
I guess you've never heard of "probable cause."
So like a computer system actively participating in ID theft and DDoS attacks?
>If the police unduly lock you out of your own property on the way out then doubly sure.
But patching a system doesn't lock the owner out...
>What would piss me off is not being notified, and not being given the chance to remediate myself (what if the police damage other pieces of property on the way and I could avoid the damage if I’m simply made aware), etc.
So you're volunteering your tax dollars for the FBI to track down hundreds of thousands of people across the globe to let them know their systems were patched? I'm not. If this upsets you: don't put unpatched systems on the internet?
>So let’s go back to the meth lab example: do you think it’s okay for the police to show up on your property unannounced in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping to silently shut down the meth lab without notifying you that they’re trespassing and then slap a lock on your basement door behind which you store your emergency cash, medical supplies, prescription drug refills, personal protection equipment, defensive firearms, etc. without leaving the keys or so much as a word?
You're taking the analogy to a place you know doesn't exist. The police don't have a way to notify everyone that's infected, expecting them to do so before shutting down a major botnet is just silly and arguing for the sake of arguing.
Nobody said they were adding a lock, I said they were locking the door on their way out: the lock is already there, you already have the key. When they patched these systems it didn't somehow make the owner unable to login.
I don’t think I am. If the FBI can remotely execute code on my machine then they could certainly drop a notification with a link to a page explaining the situation and how to remediate. Or they could use any number of emergency alert systems to make people aware of a potentially harmful botnet. Or they could email the owner of the machine instead of running their own malware.
Anyway as I’ve stated I don’t really disagree with the outcome here. I just don’t think your “let the police do whatever they want to people’s property it’s for the greater good” mentality is healthy, especially not in the US where we very carefully limit the power we grant over violence because we recognize property and privacy rights.
I’m not arguing for the sake of arguing. I think it’s fair to ask: “could this have been conducted in a manner where people were aware and could have provided consent or intervened if necessary and still achieved a similar result”?
(Misunderstood you about the lock part, thought you were saying they were locking the premises because it was a crime scene or something and not notifying you.)
You're making a ton of leaps of faith that a user is going to both read and follow the instructions.
>Or they could use any number of emergency alert systems to make people aware of a potentially harmful botnet.
So... you want the FBI to reach out to all of the world's governments and have them issue an "emergency alert" to get people to patch their computers? And you think that's a reasonable stance to take?
>Or they could email the owner of the machine instead of running their own malware.
And they're getting these email addresses how?
>I just don’t think your “let the police do whatever they want to people’s property it’s for the greater good” mentality is healthy, especially not in the US where we very carefully limit the power we grant over violence because we recognize property and privacy rights.
And I think you're arguing for the sake of arguing. Literally nobody said "let the police do whatever they want with people's property". The machines in question were ACTIVELY PARTICIPATING IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. This isn't some philosophical debate.
The problem with analogies is that they assume they are correctly "analogous" but 9/10 times they really describe an entirely different situation, making them unhelpful if not misleading
Useful answers: Ducks are not as intelligent as horses and aren't as easy to train. There is not a good way to strap a harness onto a duck for this task. Ducks waddle and this introduces turbulence. Ducks have substantially less pulling power. etc.
Useless answer: A duck is not a horse because a duck is different from a horse.
The person making the analogy knows that it is an analogy; it is not the source of confusion.
Letting someone run a meth lab in your cellar is pretty obviously not the same as "letting" some malware run on your box, for crying out loud
"I'm not convinced, you must do better with your analogies" is exceedingly unhelpful if you actually know what the issue is. What do you imagine is the correct response to that? Are they supposed to keep guessing at analogies while you say "Nope!" until they read your mind? Just because the important differences are obvious to you doesn't mean that they're obvious to them (and the fact that they used the analogy suggests very strongly that they are not).
"Obviously not the same thing" is generally applicable to all analogies, valid or otherwise.
It expresses repulsion in addition to expressing rejection.
And, yes, they'll have to guess what's wrong... But the argument my veiled criticism is making is that their analogy is so objectively bad that it won't take them more than half a second to figure out what's wrong with it. I refuse to waste my time explaining because I value my time more than that (even if, perhaps ironically, I don't mind explaining to you why I chose not to explain myself to them)
For the record, it has been a day and I have not figured out what you believe is wrong with the analogy. Everyone else in the thread seems to be going along with it, except for one person who correctly points out that the 'lock the doors' aspect is irrelevant. I'm not really invested in the answer (my aim was just to defend the usefulness of analogies), but that feels like a data point I should pass along.
Making sure you do not have malware in your computer requires specific knowledge that the average person likely doesn't have. Sure, you can take precautions, use antivirus, etc. but those are not foolproof and often involve specific tradeoffs like wasting CPU cycles, unlike the methlab in cellar scenario. They also require knowing you should take precautions to not be infected to begin with, which is rarely the case
The wine cellar exists in the physical world for which we evolved to inhabit. Malware does not.
I can personally attest that having a working sense of smell is not a reliable method for knowing what something novel-to-you is and it can be easy to misattribute. Decomposition of flesh has a very unique smell in my experience, but it was only through that experience that I now know that that smell is flesh decomposition (and not related to nearby farmland work).
It is pretty amazing (and horrifying) to me that there are also some people who discover that someone else has been secretly living in their home with them. I can only imagine how intrusive that would be and the paranoia that would set in after such a discovery, even if they moved to a new house. I wonder if this has become even less prevalent given the use of internal cameras?
I think this actually rather reinforces your point, even if it contradicts the assertion in the leading sentence. How much can you expect people to know their computer has been co-opted, which might be an almost completely alien environment to them, if it is possible to co-opt someone's home (an environment they are intimately familiar with)?
[As an aside, this is my first post here on HN. If anything I have written above is not in line with the desired tone/content of comments, could someone spare the time to point it out and explain what and how it could be improved, so I can adjust? Thank you!]
Your comment got was marked "dead", so I went ahead and vouched for it + upvoted, which I think now has marked it with the proper respect it deserves. You can vouch for comments after you reach a certain karma level (there are various unlocks for various levels of karma, but nothing that changes your experience here, really)
Welcome to HN!
This feels like nitpicking / grasping at straws / being needlessly obtuse but I'll follow the guidelines and quote-unquote "Assume Good Faith" -- fine, rephrase my comment as "obviously not analogous" rather than "obviously not the same as"
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-08/23mj4244_application_reda...
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-08/23mj4244_warrant_redacted...
"Lawful access" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but at least they specified it.
Hopefully they aren't lying.
Though it’s only legal when they do it. Pretty sure it’d still be a crime if a good Samaritan tried it out.
> Whoever, within the United States, knowingly begins or sets on foot or provides or prepares a means for or furnishes the money for, or takes part in, any military or naval expedition or enterprise to be carried on from thence against the territory or dominion of any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or people with whom the United States is at peace, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
I've never claimed any of my musings are profound revelations. That's an exercise left to the reader.
> Law enforcement is allowed to run stings, serve warrants and make arrests, you aren't.
Specifics matter. "The Government" is not some monolithic entity. Even "law enforcement" could be local, State level, FBI, CIA, or some other part of the executive branch. Each has its own restrictions on when and how it can operate.
> The military is allowed to invade countries and drop nukes, you aren't.
The military is expressly disallowed from interfering in civilian affairs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
> Yes it is legal when they do it and not some average Joe who wants to play hero.
It's an untested open question whether it's legal for them to do it to US civilians or infrastructure that they know is owned by US civilians.
It might be the right thing to do. The world might be better for it. It might even be decided one day that they do in fact have that power (there's a pretty clear argument that stopping a botnet qualifies as "Hot pursuit": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pursuit).
> That's how the world works, and it is a good thing.
There's plenty of "ends justify the means" situations involving the government that are not good things applied more generally. Hence, specifics matter.
The military is expressly disallowed from interfering in civilian affairs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Is vice versa.
"To interact with infected hosts, the replacement servers required a certificate that can sign messages. It appears that the certificates were obtained and used for good intentions."
Unlike so-called "tech" companies that can smugly ignore Americans' reasonable expectations of privacy in order to generate obscene profits, there are laws that prohibit the US government from engaging in similar shenangigans. (The "shenangigans" should be crimes but money has intervened.)
Even if hypothetical government-issued software might be "inferior" to whatever the so-called "tech" companies are producing, it would still be "superior" from a legal/regulatory standpoint. Americans would have some enforceable rights as software users. (Other countries are making some progress.)
Someone is inevitably going to make a wise crack reply about government contracting in the US. But I'm not referring to contractors. I'm referring to government employees.
We'll also likely see some reply about the technical superiority of so-called "tech" company software. But I'm not referring to technical superiority, I'm referring to (a) legal/regulatory limits on software authors and (b) software user rights.
It's not just the American public, it's every computer user—everywhere. The reason is because it's easy.
There's plenty of secure software and systems out there. It's hard to use. The costs outweigh the benefits for most people most of the time. We could all be running Qubes or openBSD but we don't because it's hard. It's hard to do simple things. Most of the world runs on Windows and people are logged in as admin. It's a point and click world.
I don't know if the government needs to write software, but I do think there is room for a vendor to step up, particularly in the business world, with systems that offer ironclad security.
IMO we are in an increasingly dangerous world. I'm surprised the internet connected world hasn't collapsed yet. Every day seems to be a new kind of scam or malware. It takes incredible effort to safeguard systems today. One wrong click and in 5 minutes your entire life can be destroyed. I'm curious what the stats are on malware that has completely destroyed businesses. Cyber insurance policies are almost necessary now even if you consider yourself a skilled user.
If the laws you’re alluding to are steadfast, provide true equal protection and are perfectly enforced I could see greater reliance on government software tools.
However, history is littered with government agencies failing to protect people. Not to pick on the FBI here but the organization’s own J. Edward Hoover wasn’t the most privacy focused person. The group’s HQ is still named after this person.
Perhaps other organizations could be relied on more. People have wanted free tax filing software for a long time.
However, even the IRS has been shown vulnerable to take actions based on pressure from political forces.
-https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-08/23mj4244_application_reda...
The cynical part of me says that (1) they just installed an NSA backdoor in hundreds of thousands of computers; (2) the FBI probably didn't even realize it; (3) it'll all come to light some years from now when the NSA tooling is leaked by a careless contractor and used by various worse actors; (4) but the "leak" was NSA's plan all along to spy on said various worse actors.
The meta-cynical part of me says all that is way too convoluted and I should take off the tin-foil fedora and tip it to m'lady.
Feels like one of those "in world messages" you find in games like Cyberpunk 2077. Could have been written by NetWatch.
We live in amazing times.
This just seems very cool to me:
> a. First, the FBI will identify the current Tier 1 servers (which are also Qakbot infected victim computers) based on information collected by the FBI.
> b. Second, an FBI-controlled computer will contact each of those Tier 1 servers using commands built into the Qakbot malware and Qakbot encryption keys known to the FBI. The FBI will instruct each Tier 1 server to download and install an FBI-created module that replaces the “supernode” module in the already-installed Qakbot malware (“FBI Supernode Module”). The FBI Supernode Module contains a new encryption key that will make it impossible for the Qakbot administrators to communicate with the Tier 1 servers. The proposed warrant would authorize replacement of the “supernode” module to allow the FBI to communicate with and search infected computers that make up the botnet. The proposed warrant therefore also authorizes law enforcement officers to seize or copy from the infected computers electronically stored information related to the Qakbot malware, including encryption keys and server lists used by the Qakbot administrators to communicate with computers that are part of the Qakbot infrastructure.
> c. Third, the FBI will contact each of those Tier 1 servers using commands built into the Qakbot malware. The FBI will instruct those Tier 1 servers to communicate with an FBI- controlled server (the “FBI Server”) instead of the Qakbot Tier 2 servers. At this point all communications from infected botnet computers will be routed through the Tier 1 servers to the FBI Server, rather than to the Qakbot Tier 2 and Tier 3 servers.
> d. Fourth, infected computers subject to this warrant that make up the botnet would then communicate with the FBI Server instead of the Tier 3 server. As noted above, the Qakbot malware instructs the infected computers to contact the Tier 3 server every one to four minutes. When those infected computers contact the FBI Server, the server will instruct them to download a second file created by law enforcement (“the Qakbot Uninstaller”). This warrant would authorize this action, with the intent that computers in the United States that are infected with the Qakbot malware will download the Qakbot Uninstaller from the FBI Server via the FBI-controlled Tier 1 servers. The proposed warrant therefore authorizes law enforcement officers to seize or copy from the infected computers electronically stored information related to the Qakbot malware, including IP addresses and routing information necessary to determine whether the infected computer continues to be controlled by the Qakbot botnet.
> I learned that early in life. My first hack, the local library, a vulnerable FTP server in its AS/400. A far cry from the Android zero days I'm using to own the FBI standard-issue smartphone. The library was a test to see if I could even get into the system. I've since set greater goals.
> For instance, step two: Build malware and prepare an attack. At my fingertips, the zero day is wrapped in code like a Christmas present, then becomes an exploit, the programmatic expression of my will.
> I live for this shit.
--Elliott, on hacking the FBI (Mr. Robot)
I think I'll change my SSID to 'FBI Supernode'
https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/solutions/endpoint-security...
I'm glad the FBI invested 15+ years and who knows how much money to rid the world of QBot, but this isn't a scalable solution to the botnet problem.
https://www.secureworks.com/blog/qakbot-campaign-delivered-b...
They took down emotet as well but it's had a resurgence.
Qakbot in recent years has shifted to a initial access broker monetization scheme where it sells access (cobaltrsike,etc...) to more serious actors who will pay the access fee instead of hiring talent themselves to do the hacking. So they have a strong community of customers. They will need to arrest a lot of people at once and hope they got all the people needed to revive it.
1. if someone installed Qakbot willingly, does the warrant apply (the warrant has what looks to me like specific language limiting it to unaware victim’s machines)?
2. if the FBI’s justice.exe damaged data on a victim machine because of an unexpected configuration, are they liable for damages?
> An aggrieved citizen might also have a claim for civil liability against the officer or the law enforcement agency for certain unreasonable actions taken in the search. The basis for such claims could include invasion of privacy, trespass, or property damage.
that did not come out of the police budget
- https://ij.org/press-release/after-a-swat-team-destroyed-a-t...
- https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending-now/court-rules-homeowne...
- https://reason.com/2023/07/27/a-swat-team-destroyed-an-innoc...
- etc etc etc thousands of times
2. No, but if they completely botched the module, possibly yes. See 17:
17. The FBI Supernode Module and the Qakbot Uninstaller do not collect content from the infected computers, nor do they alter the functionality of the infected computers’ operating systems, files, or software, except as expressly provided in this affidavit.
But no arrests announced? I wish the people responsible for this were made an example of, as opposed to being basically free to start over (it seems).
I don't understand the criticism, could you explain why you view this in a negative light?
In this case, the comments seem irrationally critical, to the point of being unconstructive.
I'm not sure the analogy applies perfectly anyway, since it was "only" a single "fire" in which "only" 700,000 victims were affected.
Do firefighters perform law enforcement duties in your jurisdiction?
Unless they want to start a war with Russia, probably not.
So the FBI used unauthorized access to the computers to uninstall the malware? Scary if you think about it. I'm sure they could have used that access any way they wanted.
The FBI is far from perfect but this is the kind of thing they _should_ be doing, using their unique privileges to help with public menaces. Anyone on the internet could compromise them, too, so I’d prefer a public cleanup.
It seems like this might be the case here where some minuscule portion of the botnet base is security research firms / etc. who have a reason to have the botnet software installed and don't want it deleted; in fact, it may even affect their livelihood to delete it.
It's Also why people normally get a permit or at least contact officials to tell them that they're going to do staging a scene that looks exactly like an accident/crime scene.
It isn't a strike against emergency responders for responding to a situation that someone has staged to look as close to the real thing as possible.
I have to imagine this is similar. If your livelihood relies on a botnet, and you don't at least let authorities know, my guess is you're not a researcher. . .
One time they still managed to damage something outside of the vast location (an abandoned airport I believe) they were working within, and were banned from that location.
This reminds me of frivolous lawsuits. A doctor sees someone needing medical attention. The doctor performs CPR, break some ribs in the process, but ultimately saves their life. The person who would have otherwise died, sues the doctor for breaking their ribs while completely ignoring the good will that saved them from certain death.
This doesn’t make any sense to me: no ethical security firm is going to allow their resources to be used to attack other people, or complain if the FBI shut down the people attacking their clients.
In your examples none of them invole solving problems that you would not be unaware of, in ways that you're not aware of without telling you they were there and oh btw they had to rifle through your undwrware drawer to fix it.
It’s pretty common for there to be problems the owner can’t be reached for - people travel, get hospitalized, die, etc. - but that doesn’t prevent action. What it can do is limit what they’re allowed to bring charges for – in your example, if they said they were pursuing reports of squatters in your house they couldn’t search inside your dresser since that’s not in plain sight.
In this case, I would expect that courts would give the FBI considerable leeway for neutralizing a system which is being actively used to commit crimes but not to check your private data to see if you were cheating on your taxes.
Sounds like they hijacked a malware proxy server and had it forward the traffic to their own server.
> This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States.
I'm not sure if this is the relevant code for this Qakbot incident, I'm just trying to clarify that the law generally accepts that law enforcement officials get special dispensation from the regular requirements of the law in order to carry out their function or to protect the public.
The access was always possible. Not just by the FBI. In fact, it was already being accessed by the botnet operators. The issue here is _permission_ and _precedent_. The government gave itself permission to go into these computers and cleanup the botnet. What explicit permission did they grant themselves and what precedent does that set?
I'm pretty hesitant/paranoid about the U.S. government and the powers we (citizens) grant them. But this one surprisingly sits right with me. It looks thoughtfully applied and constrained - a very tactical operation to go in and cleanup a botnet without accessing any unnecessary data in the process.
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-08/23mj4244_application_reda...
Meanwhile in the physical world https://reason.com/volokh/2021/11/30/federal-court-rules-tak...