EarthLink finds spyware running amok

TalkBack 12 of 19:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Any good systems or network administrator can watch traffic.

Simple question, simple answer....

Any network can be monitored at the routers to see what sort of traffic is going through the ingress and egress ports, a simple packet sniffer will server this function. Most ISP?s have some sort of network management system running that can tell how much traffic to/from a source, the type (port), etc. If a given user is particularly chatty, or sporadically chatty in an interesting way, a trap is tripped and a message is sent to the management station. Most ISP?s tech?s understand some network management software, perhaps even SNMP.

Now, with this, we can watch what is happening on a given network. On a LAN, one can watch the traffic that is going on, also. A simple port sniffer (snoop, Ethereal, etc) can watch traffic and flag interesting traffic from a given host. Scale that to an ISP and you can understand how they are watching what is going on and finding interesting network usage. This tells them when spyware or some other app is running, sometimes even the type of application that is generating the traffic (/etc/services on a Unix system tends to list most or all known and assigned ports).

This can be done with any host platform (Unix/Linux, Windows, MacOS, etc.), such taht it is not targetting a single OS. Any ISP can do this, and does! You can even monitor what is going over RF traffic (Wi-Fi, Wi-MAX, Bluetooth, etc.).

Posted by: B.O.F.H.   Posted on: 10/05/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Get top-ranked Novell support for Red Hat when you switch Novell If Linux is going to power your mission-critical applications, you'd ... Download Now
• Dell Computers Help Brad Marshall Homes Increase the Mobility of Field Workers, Enhance Customer Service, and Accelerate Projects by an Estimated 20 Percent Dell For custom home building company Brad Marshall Homes, providing ... Download Now
• ArgYou.com Partners With Dell for Content Analysis Dell Supported by a comprehensive hardware infrastructure from Dell, ArgYou's ... Download Now