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U.S. ranks 9th in Global PC Infection Report, according to PandaLabs
Average number of worldwide infections grew 15 percent over last month – Global infection ratio hits all time high this year at nearly 60 percent
PandaLabs, Panda Security’s malware analysis and detection laboratory, announced that it has detected a 15 percent increase in the total number of malware-infected computers in September in comparison to the previous month of August. According to data gathered from users that scanned and disinfected their computers with the free Panda ActiveScan online antivirus, the average infection ratio rose to 59 percent, the highest rate this year.
In comparison to the infection rates of 29 countries, the U.S. ranks ninth with an infection ratio of 58.25 percent, just below the worldwide average. Taiwan has the most infected PCs, with a 69.10 percent corruption, followed by Russia and China at 67.99 percent and 61.97 percent, respectively. The country with the least infections is Norway at 39.60 percent. To view a table that outlines the percentage of infected computers by country, please visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda_security/3963144168/.
According to Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, “There is a false sense of security, as users perceive there to be no real danger at the moment. When their computers get infected, they rarely notice any symptoms.”
Panda’s study revealed that U.S. computers are infected by the most dangerous malware strains: Trojans, followed by adware, worms and viruses. To see the number and types of malware on infected computers in the U.S., please visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lithium-/3963437003/sizes/o/.
“This is a clear sign that hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated,” explains Corrons. “Cybercriminals have found news ways to spread their creations, frequently exploiting the latest news stories to launch attacks through social networks, videos, and email. The huge amount of Trojans in circulation is due to the spectacular increase in the number of banker Trojans aimed at stealing user data.”
Trojans accounted for 70 percent of the new malware detected during the second quarter of 2009, according to PandaLabs
This type of malware was also responsible for over a third of all infections between April and June; the Downloader.MDW Trojan was the most active strain of malware during this period – The malicious use of Twitter, the advance of BlackHat SEO techniques, and an in-depth study of the Waledac worm, are some of the other issues covered in the PandaLabs Quarterly Report
Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, announced that PandaLabs, Panda Security’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware, announced the findings from its second quarterly report of 2009 and determined that Trojans accounted for 70 percent of all new malware between April and June 2009.
The report can be downloaded from http://www.pandasecurity.com/img/enc/Quarterly_Report_PandaLabs_Q2_2009.pdf.
One of the most notable findings of the report is the 6.25 percent drop in spyware, which now represents just 6.9 percent of all new malware. In contrast, adware rose dramatically over this period, from 7.54 percent in the previous quarter to 16.37 percent. This is largely due to the increase in fake antivirus applications, a type of adware that passes itself off as a legitimate security solution. As for worms, their percentage has also risen slightly, now accounting for 4.4 percent of all malware.
Trojans were also responsible for more infections than any other type of malware over this period. This type of malware was behind 34.37 percent of all infections detected by PandaLabs, an increase of 2.86 percent with respect to the previous quarter. Adware infection levels remained stable, accounting for 19.62 percent of the total.
Worms increased slightly (0.89 percent), staying in the picture due largely to the effectiveness by which they spread. Dialers, at 4.48 percent, stubbornly refused to disappear despite the overriding trend for broadband instead of dial-up connections.
In terms of specific strains of malware, the number one ranked specimen between April and June 2009 was Downloader.MDW, a Trojan designed to download other malware on to computers. The Virtumonde spyware and Rebooter.J Trojan were also among the malicious codes that caused most infections.
01 Trj/Downloader.MDW
02 Spyware/Virtumonde
03 Trj/Rebooter.J
04 Trj/Lineage.BZE
05 W32/Bagle.RP.worm
06 Adware/AccesMembre
07 Adware/SystemSecurity
08 W32/Waledac.AS
09 Adware/Lop
10 W32/AutoRun.DJ.worm
When broken down geographically, Taiwan continues to top the list with 33.63 percent of computers infected with active malware. Turkey and Poland come next, with just under 30 percent. Three Scandinavian countries, Sweden (14.2 percent), Norway (12.48 percent) and Finland (12.17 percent), are the countries with the lowest number of computers infected by active malware during the first half of 2009.
Graphical representations of new malware detected in Q2 2009, as well as how different countries are affected by malware infection can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/panda_security/tags/q2report/.
Malicious use of Twitter
A worm appeared in April which used a cross-site scripting technique to infect Twitter users when they visited the profiles of other infected users. It then infected the new user’s profile to continue propagating. New variants appeared, and finally the creator’s identity was revealed: an individual named Mikey Mooney, who apparently wanted to attract users to a service competing with Twitter.
In early June, Twitter was the focus of other attacks, this time using different techniques, most predominantly, BlackHat SEO. Twitter has a feature called “Trending Topics”, which is a list of the most popular topics that appears in the interface of all Twitter users. When users select a topic through this feature, they see all ‘tweets’ published that are related to this issue.
In this case, malicious users were writing tweets about the topics listed in Twitter Trends with links to malicious Web pages from which malware was downloaded. The first attack focused on just one of the topics, but just a few days later the scope of the attack increased and all popular topics contained malicious links. When the actor David Carradine died, there were hundreds of malicious tweets in just a few hours, and the same thing occurred with other popular issues on Twitter.
The second anniversary of Collective Intelligence, a detailed analysis of the Waledac worm, trends regarding the sending of malware via spam and the evolution of BlackHat SEO techniques are just some of the other issues covered in the PandaLabs Quarterly Report.
Source: Panda Security
Rise in cyber crime, cyber terrorism and cyber espionage tied heavily to data-stealing malware
In its first Focus Report, Trend Micro examines the growth of data-stealing malware, its characteristics and its roots in the underground cyber crime economy.
While the term “data-stealing malware” is a relatively new one, its sole purpose for existence is a familiar story: To steal proprietary information such as online banking credentials, credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords, and more from compromised networks and PCs in order to fuel an underground cyber crime economy driven by profit-seeking criminal networks that cross geopolitical boundaries.
Trojans: The Rising Star in Data-Stealing
Trojans are the fastest growing category of data-stealing malware, according to data from TrendLabs(SM), Trend Micro’s global network of research, service, and support centers committed to constant threat surveillance and attack prevention. Trojan attacks pose a serious threat to computer security. True to their name, they typically arrive disguised as something benign such as a screen saver, game, or joke. Based on TrendLabs research:
- In 2007, 52 percent of data-stealing malware were Trojans; in 2008, that number increased to 87 percent; as of Q1 2009, 93 percent of data-stealing malware were Trojans.
- Trojans and Trojan spyware are the predominant type of data-stealing malware in all regions monitored by TrendLabs, including Australia, Asia, Africa, South America, North America and Europe.
“As a threat category, data-stealing malware is experiencing tremendous growth because it serves the needs of financially motivated criminals who leverage the Internet for what it does best – provides valuable information,” said Jamz Yaneza, threat research manager for Trend Micro.
The Politics of Transnational Cyber Crime
Politics and cyber crime have finally intersected in news headlines; understandably so: In the U.S. alone, the number of known breaches of government computers with malware more than doubled between 2006 and 2008, according to the Department of Homeland Security.(i)
And, says Trend Micro advanced threat researcher Paul Ferguson, it is even possible that cyber terrorists may have already planted malware within the U.S. electrical grid that would allow them to remotely disrupt service.
Cyber crime has gained significant international mobility. In 2007, Estonian computer networks were crippled when serious distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against government and civilian sites were reputedly linked back to Russian operatives. At the time, Russia and Estonia were involved in a dispute over the Estonians’ removal of a Soviet war memorial. The French Embassy’s web site in Beijing was inaccessible for several days after a full-scale cyber attack following President Nicolas Sarkozy’s meeting with Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Experts now widely believe instead that a Chinese hacking group staged the attack for nationalistic purposes.
“Virtually anyone with a computer and Internet access can wreak havoc. In the U.S., hacker attacks have been documented on county or state government sites,” said Ferguson. “Smaller organizations have a limited IT budget and few IT staff so they hire a third party to build a web site. Over time, the site fails to be maintained or upgraded, exposing vulnerabilities that hacktivists then leverage to express political views.”
Cyber espionage is also grabbing headlines. Every year, corporations suffer billions of dollars in intellectual property losses when trade secrets are illegally copied and sold to competitors on the black market for profit, or used for extortion. Business networks all over the world provide the perfect medium for cybercriminals capable of breaching their defenses.
“Cybercriminals are using malware for financial gain and for geopolitical purposes,” said Ferguson. “We have even seen data-stealing malware attacks against U.S. defense contractors – believed to be Chinese – launched to steal confidential trade secrets. However, it’s hard to connect the dots back to the people really pulling the strings because of the anonymous nature of the Internet.”
Traditional Security is no Longer a Match for Cyber Criminals
For years, security protections have been focused on protecting the endpoints – where most people access data. In today’s multi-threat environment, a new strategy is needed. The Trend Micro(TM) Smart Protection Network enables a multilayered threat prevention approach that is built upon the concept of proactively blocking data-stealing malware in the Internet cloud before they can infiltrate a network.
A correlated approach is used to address the tendency for cybercriminals today to launch multi-pronged, combined attacks composed of a number of different Web threats. Using correlation technology and behavioral analysis, the Smart Protection Network correlates combinations of threat activities to evaluate their potential for danger. It analyzes email, embedded links, file attachments, and hosted web files to identify new IPs, domains, URLs, and files that can be instantly added to reputation databases to quickly block new threats.
By examining the relationships between and across different components, the Smart Protection Network provides a realistic view of potential threats to deliver a holistic, comprehensive view of the threat landscape.
Data Protection Pack for “Insider” Threats
A company’s greatest asset – their employees – can also be their greatest security liability, especially by those who have access to data within a corporate network. Trend Micro offers solutions not just for external threats, but internal threats as well. The Data Protection Pack bundles together Trend Micro(TM) LeakProof Standard, Trend Micro(TM) Email Encryption Gateway and Trend Micro(TM) Message Archiver. The Data Protection Pack secures email and prevents the loss of sensitive data in use, in motion and at rest; it is available for Trend Micro(TM) NeatSuite Advanced and Client Server Messaging customers.
To read the full Data-Stealing Malware Focus Report, visit: http://us.trendmicro.com/imperia/md/content/us/pdf/threats/securitylibrary/dat a_stealing_malware_focus_report_-_june_2009.pdf
(i) Paul Haven, “Cyber-Spy vs. Cyber-Spy,” TechNewsWorld.com, April 12, 2009, http://www.technewsworld.com/story/viruses-malware/66782.html?wlc=1241718857
Source: Trend Micro