Weekly Spam Trends - Bots Increasingly Behind Cybercrimes and Spams

Scrub · #1 12-14-07, 07:39 AM

The General Conclusion is this" Bots Are Increasingly Behind Cybercrimes and Spams"

Quote:

The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Groups' believes that as many as 7 percent of PCs worldwide--about 47 million--are infected by bots and that 70 percent of spam is sent from bot nets, according to the article.

Weekly Spam Trends

Weekly Spam Trends2.jpeg

Source: Total Quality Management - Real Time DNSBL & Spam Trap

Scrub · #2 12-14-07, 08:05 AM

McAfee Says - Cybercrime Poses Threat To National Security
By Jacqui Cheng | Published: November 30, 2007 - 12:42PM CT

Cybercrime continues to spread quickly and shows no signs of slowing down, according to McAfee. And as it continues to grow, attackers are taking on an increasingly international presence. Organized cyberattacks originate from around the globe, attacking not only individuals and businesses, but governments too. Cybercrime has grown up, says McAfee, from some geeks having fun in the basement to a thriving global economy that poses a threat to national security. The report is a reminder of some of the recent trends we've seen in so-called "cybercrime."

"No matter what you call the dark side of the Internet, it's a grim reality that is growing alarmingly fast," wrote McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt in the company's annual Virtual Criminology Report. McAfee used its own data combined with information from organizations like NATO, the FBI, the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS, of which several Ars contributors are alums), the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, and the London School of Economics to form the 40-page report.

The results don't paint a pretty picture: McAfee says that the Internet is becoming a weapon for political, military, and economic espionage, even between countries. An estimated 120 countries are working on their own cyberattack commands, says the company, and countries could be fighting for "cyber supremacy" within the next 10 to 20 years. "The Chinese were first to use cyberattacks for political and military goals," director for the Center for Intelligence and Research James Mulventon said in the report. "Whether it is a battlefield preparation or hacking networks connected to the German chancellor they are the first state actor to jump feet first into the 21st century cyber warfare technology." McAfee says that countries that are heavily networked and reliant on the Internet, such as the US, as well as those that have unstable political environments, are particularly at risk for being attacked in the future. While we're not in agreement with the claim that China is the first to use so-called "cyberattacks" (we'd need to define that such attacks first), one thing is certainly true: the accusations of so-called cyber espionage have increased dramatically in the last year.

Of course, there's still the same old threats there have always been, except that "same old" is getting more sophisticated, according to the report. Attacks are morphing from quick and dirty exploits to full-on fraud and extortion in some cases (particularly with targeted phishing, aka "Whaling"), and attackers are looking to get in on newly-popular technologies like P2P and VoIP. Individuals are also being used to carry out larger attacks—the now-infamous Storm Worm created a huge botnet from personal machines that was eventually used to carry out DDoS attacks.

Speaking of botnets, it's increasingly easy to buy, sell, trade, or even lease a botnet to carry out an attacker's dirty work. "This enables perpetrators with fewer technical skills to commit crimes," wrote McAfee, pointing out that the mere act of creating botnets and writing malware is a growing business of its own. "[M]alware writers do not even need to commit the crimes themselves to make it financially viable; they can simply sell the tools to do so."

The report suggests that cyber criminals have no fear of law enforcement yet, because there is little organization between countries as to how to prosecute them. McAfee says that, on the one hand, some countries that are known for being sources of malware are beginning to take action, such as Russia, which has just formed an e-crime unit. On the other hand, many experts believe that cybercrime will have to grow even further before it is taken more seriously, on the level of drugs or gambling. McAfee remains optimistic, however, that change will come over time, and that governments and ISPs will step up to "protect the public from malware, hacking, and social engineering."

Actually, what is most needed is for the computing public to practice skeptical computing.

Source: Ars Technica

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes	Rate This Thread
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode	Rate This Thread: