Microsoft Exposed Top Five Malicious Threats of Russia

Microsoft released the sixth editions of its Security Intelligence Report, which covers the period from July 2008 to December 2008, on April 8, 2009. The report highlighted that malware dominated the cybercrime landscape in Russia. During the later half of 2008, 81.1% of the total infections borne by the Russian computers were due to malware.

A worm dubbed Win32/Taterf was detected as the most widespread malicious code in the country during the period, which infected 179,216 computers. This worm has been developed to steal the online game login information of users.

According to security experts cyber crooks may employ any method like injecting in game clients and directly reading the memory or may stick to their traditional key-logging, but ultimately, the purpose of all these is to steal the login details of the users. Once the data is accessed, it is directed to a remote place, where the highest bidder purchases it.

Win32/Renos was the second most widespread malicious code in Russia, which was responsible for infecting 59,882 systems. It comes under the category of Trojan Downloaders and Droppers and shows phony security warnings aiming to dodge the user into downloading third-party cleaning software like anti-spyware scanners.

Win32/Frethog that was ranked third most wicked code infected 52,529 PCs in Russia, according to Microsoft's report. It is a Trojan that steals online gaming passwords. China is reportedly the chief source of this Trojan. Moreover, this Trojan has transformed into several other versions like Win32/Taterf.

Further, by infecting 37,455 PCs, Win32/Cutwail is at the fourth spot. It's yet another Trojan that created nuisance in Russia during the second half of 2008. This Trojan downloads and runs random files.

The functionality of downloaded files varies. Cutwail generally downloads a Trojan that circulates spam. It also uses a rootkit and other similar defensive techniques so as to evade being detected and removed.

Fifth-ranked Win32/Jeefo is reportedly a parasitic virus that infects files. This virus infects portable executable files of Microsoft Windows and was found on 29,255 infected systems in Russia during H2 2008, as per the Microsoft's report.

Related article: Microsoft Patches Live OneCare to Tackle Quarantined E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 5/1/2009