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Four Tips for IT Managers: Crimeware Increasing Its Profile Within the Enterprise

Dennis McCafferty | Date: 11-08-10 | Comments

Whether via social networks, Google or your e-mail in-box, cyber-rogues will seek a way into your network to disrupt business, steal company data and otherwise make life miserable for IT managers. A new report from CA Technologies reveals the latest trends for these intrusions�and how to stop them.

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Four Tips for IT Managers: Crimeware Increasing Its Profile Within the Enterprise

There are more than 400 new families of Internet threats�led by rogue security software, downloaders and backdoors. Trojan intrusions are the most common of these incidents, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the total threat infections reported worldwide.

The Trojan's current MO? "Crimeware-as-a-service," which is the underlying purpose of nearly all of these attacks.

These are some of the more troubling findings revealed in a recent report from CA Technologies, titled "State of the Internet 2010: A Report on the Ever-Changing Threat Landscape." Crimeware is nothing new. But what has changed are the service models that practitioners are adopting, says Don DeBolt, director of Threat Research and Internet Security for CA Technologies.

"This new method of malware distribution makes it more challenging to identify and remediate," DeBolt says. "Fortunately, security professionals and developers are diligent about staying one step ahead of these cyber-criminals."

Here's what tech managers need to know about a number of disruptive developments:

● Crooks like the cloud. Crimeware-as-a-service is essentially a way of turning your enterprise assets into an ATM for cyber-criminals. They can harvest valuable information through a malware infection and then generate multiple revenue streams. And cloud computing is the new, favored delivery model.

● Status Update: "We've Been Hit!" Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are popular among the abusers too, CA Technologies reports, as a black market is evolving to push social-networking bots. Underground marketers promote new social networking applications and services that include account checkers, wall posters, wall likers, wall commenters, fan inviters and friend adders. Enterprise managers can't stop employees from using social networks, as they've proven to have a high level of value as a business tool. But they can take proactive steps to ensure internal users aren't falling into a dangerous trap (see the tips below).

● Phony security software likes Google. The search engine giant is the preferred target for distribution of rogue software through Blackhat SEO, which takes users to infected Website domains, according to the report. Rogue security software displays bogus alerts following installation and will coerce users to pay for the fake product or service. Then, there's what's called "rogue security software cloning," in which the software employs a template that constructs its product name based on the infected system's Windows operating system version, making itself look all the more legit.

● Where's that spam coming from anyway? Report researchers tracked the usage of unique IP addresses to find out which regions originate the most junk e-mail. The results: The European Union ranked as the top source of spam, at 31 percent; Asia Pacific and Japan ranked second (28 percent); India, third (21 percent); and the United States, fourth (18 percent).

Next: Tips for Avoiding Crippling Attacks >>