New Converged Attacks Raise Risk for Service Providers

Cloudmark Inc., the world leader in providing security for carrier-grade messaging, warned on August 12, 2008 that there was an increase in risk for operators of converged on account of the activities of cyber attackers. The company also urged agencies providing services to examine their security mechanisms to defeat the rising number of attacks over multiple mediums.

Cloudmark has found that cyber attackers are using new and sophisticated threat methods that combine the traits of phishing, spamming and malware distribution in a single attack that is spread across various mediums. Subsequently, these threats found in their converged form, hunt for loopholes in conventional security products, meant for a particular kind of attack like a virus or spam outbreak, to spread via a particular medium such as e-mails.

However, as these freshly introduced "mash-up" kind of attacks combine elements of phishing, spam and/or computer viruses into one attack that is waged simultaneously across the Web, e-mail, social networks and cell-phones, they are able to elude conventional security solutions.

Furthermore, to counteract these modern threats, Cloudmark strongly suggests service providers that they look for threat-agnostic security platforms that identify and prevent attacks across various platforms.

Neil Cook, Head of Technology Services EMEA at Cloudmark, said that convergence could be found everywhere, including in attacks of cyber criminals. To counteract modern threats, Cook said that the only effective solution is to prevent all types of exploitation ranging from phishing, viruses and spam to sophisticated 'converged' attacks over all mediums such as e-mail, social networking websites and mobile phones, as reported by e-consultancy on August 12, 2008.

Cook further said that to deploy the newly introduced converged services, service providers need to seal all possible gaps and make sure that both the subscribers and platforms are protected from the known exploitations and future advanced threats.

Bradley Anstis, Vice-President of Products, Marshals said that spammers are returning to direct spam, discarding new image spam and attachments. According to him, cyber criminals appear to be more successful by using blended and social engineering attacks, as reported by vnunet on August 12, 2008.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 8/26/2008