Internet Attack Trends in 2009

December 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Security

Internet Attack Trends in 2009

Internet security threats increasingly violent recorded in 2009. Various ways try to run by cyber criminals. Began to slip from your account from Facebook, offering fake security software and others.

Here is the Internet security trends that occurred during the 2009 versions of Symantec:

-. Carrier Malware Spam: Spam is usually impressed as a form of interference, but not necessarily dangerous. However, between September and October 2009, on average, more than 2 percent of spam contains malware, this represents an increase of nine times the amount of spam messages that contain malware.

-. Attacks via Social Networks: 2009 is the year in which the attack on social networking sites and users of the site became the standard practice of criminals. The second half of 2009, attacks that use social networking sites to increase both of the frequency and level of intelligence.
Own social networking site to combine the two factors that make it the ideal targets of online criminal activity: the large number of users and the high level of trust among the users.

-. Fake Security Software: Symantec has identified 250 applications clearly deceptive to pretend to be real security software is quite convincing in many ways, but actually only provide little or no protection at all and even infect computers with malware which he claims will he way. From July 1, 2008 until June 30, 2009, Symantec received reports of 43 million experiment fake security software installation.

-. Ready malware Serving: In 2009 we saw more malware easy to make. This is caused by the availability of the popular toolkit and user friendly. Examples like Zeus, which allows even novice hackers and even make a botnet malware. Many threats are ready to use it is the result of the combination of components of other malware that already exists. For example Dozer, which contains the components of the Mydoom and Mytob. This trend has also been made malware becomes more easily lost, with the threats come and gone in just 24 hours.

-. Surge Bot Networks: Bot networks have increasingly become the foundation of the entire virtual world of evil. Symantec has observed that the majority of current malware contains a bot command and control channel. In 2009, we even see the botnet designers to expand their ability to use social networking sites as a channel of communication.

-. Intra Cooperation and Cross-Industry: Along with the anniversary of the first variant Conficker threat to users, we are reminded how to improve the organization and the intelligence of cyberspace criminals have made the fabric a wider cooperation between security vendors, law enforcement, and Internet service providers. Examples are seen in the year 2009 included the Conficker Working Group (CWG), the movement ‘Operation Phish Phry’ which launched the FBI and the Digital Crimes inaugural Consortium, which held in October.

-. Current events Mendompleng: Valentine’s Day, NCAA March Madness, avian H1N1, the crash of Air France Flight 447, Serena Williams, the son of a balloon, and the death of Michael Jackson and Patrick Swayze. All of these events, as well as with other events countless, used by spammers and malware makers in 2009 and then to try to lure Internet users unsuspecting to download malware, buying products and getting stuck in the fraud.

We have reached a stage where there is no popular news go unused, and it looks like we’ll see more with the coming of an important world event, such as the 2010 FIFA World Cup and Winter Olympics are getting closer.

-. Drive-by Download The Many: The attacker infects the computer internet explorer secretly to infiltrate the legitimate site. The popularity of this method continues to grow. In the year 2008, Symantec observed as many as 18 million test drive-by attack download; but, from August to October 2009 alone, Symantec noted occurred as many as 17.4 million attacks.

-. McColo: Symantec saw a decrease of 65 percent of the total number of spam messages within 24 hours after the closure McColo at the end of 2008 and 24 hours later. The amount of spam reaching levels were down 69.8 per cent of all emails. But in 2009, the volume of spam back to the overall average rate of 87.4 percent of all emails, achieve a maximum 95 percent of all messages in late May.

-. Threats Polimorfis: Polymorfisme means having the ability to mutate. Thus, the threat is a threat polimorfis make every malware is slightly different from the previous malware. Automatic conversion of code built into the malware does not affect functionality, but make the detection technology’s traditional antivirus can not handle it.

Symantec has observed polimorfis threats like Waladac, Virut, and Sality, became increasingly common criminals along with the virtual world looking for ways to expand the way they circumvent conventional anti-virus technology.

-. Piracy Increasing Reputation: Geocities is the most common brands hijacked by spammers in an attempt to defraud computer users, but with the closure of the web hosting services by Yahoo in late October, Symantec saw that the rapid increase of the number of free web services small scale, such as pemendek service URL, the name and reputation abused by spammers.

This is because the progress in penetrating the CAPTCHA technology, which allows dangerous characters create multiple accounts and profiles are used for spamming. Symantec even has observed that some of the company’s small-scale web services that have closed their own sites as the only way to stop spam.

-. Data theft continues: According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, until October 13, 2009, 403 cases of data breach have been reported throughout the year and exposing more than 220 million documents. According to the Ponemon Institute, in which people mean no harm continue to represent the bulk of the data loss incidents by 88% of all incidents of data loss caused by such person in the employee and partner.

However, there is increasing attention to the danger of data loss. According to the Ponemon study, 59% of former employees admitted that they took the company’s data when they leave work.
At the time the organization to further improve the focus to avoid loss of data, it seems clear that many things that need to be done to prevent sensitive information being taken out of the company.