Message-ID: <e024ccca0609141637r4b451d16jeba90eaa9ddada14@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:37:56 -0400
From: "Dude VanWinkle" <dudevanwinkle@...il.com>
To: "Gadi Evron" <ge@...uxbox.org>
Cc: botnets@...testar.linuxbox.org, full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk, "Dave No,
	not that one Korn" <davek_throwaway@...mail.com>
Subject: Re: [botnets] the world of botnets article and
	wrong numbers

On 9/14/06, Gadi Evron <ge@...uxbox.org> wrote:
> This counts bot samples. Whether they are variants (changed) or
> insignificant changes such as only the IP address to the C&C, they are
> counted as unique.

So if you have multiple machines NAT'ed under one IP, that is one pot.
err bot eh? OK.

>
> This is why we now run different sharing projects between established
> honey nets.

So you dont count botnets that detect honeynets eh?

> > or other trivial changes?  Do you attempt to correct for complex polymorphic
> > variants?

Nah, just contributors who dont all have publicly routable IP's and
this herders that know about VMware/Honeywall


> There aren't many of those.. really. :)

Really? Ok.

> > > Further, the anti virus world sees about the same numbers.

Using the same methods?

> > > The Microsoft anti malware team (and Ziv Mador specifically) spoke of
> > > 15K avg bot samples a month, as well.

Gotcha, you MS and Symantec share numbers based of who doesnt know how
to disable your detection methods

I am just saying, the larger the organization, the sharper the focus
from the other side. Maybe a loose coalition of known non-bullshitters
would have a more accurate picture.

still love ja tho Gadi,

-JP<the douchebg>

> >
> >   Got a link/quote/reference to that?  Does Ziv explain the methodology that
> > they are using?
>
> Nope, but I will ask. Most of the numbers I get are at 15K. I can only
> prove *on my own* without relying on other sources, as reliable as they
> may be, 12K, which is the number we mentioned in the article. We were
> being conservative due to that reason, but the number is higher.
>
> > > I don't know what others may be seeing, but this is our best estimate
> > > as to what's going on with the number of unique samples released
> > > every month.
> > >
> > > Jose Nazarijo from Arbor replied on the botnets list that he sees
> > > similar numbers.
> > >
> > > I hope this helps... what are you looking to hear?
> >
> >   Some kind of explanation for the huge disjunction between these numbers
> > and our instinctive ideas about what's possible.  Of course, being
>
> I followed you this far, but to be honest, your ideas (what are
> they?) are indeed very far from reality... :)
>
> > un-worked-out intuitive estimates, such ideas are of course entirely likely
> > to be off the mark, but off the mark by two orders of magnitude?  Hence the
> > request for more methodological details.
>
> No problem, I quite understand. There is not that much science into it
> really:
> "Yo, how many unique samples do you see?" as a lone dataset if they won't
> share.
> "Yo, how many unique samples do we all see?" if they share.
> "Yo, how many unique samples do others see?"
>
> AVG is 15K, I can prove *on my own* 12K... counting banking/phishing
> trojan horses, general purpose trojans, dialers, etc (from the large bot
> families).
>
>         Gadi.
>
>
> >
> >     cheers,
> >       DaveK
> > --
> > Can't think of a witty .sigline today....
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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