RSA’s Fraud Report Predicts Strong Growth in Fast-flux Botnets

RSA recently released a report titled 'Global Online Fraud,' which says that there would be an increase in the use of advanced and complicated 'fast-flux botnets' in the next year (2010).

Explaining the function of fast-flux botnets, the RSA specialists said they conceal the servers delivering malware and phishing sites behind several hijacked computers, allowing addresses to change rapidly in order to elude detection.

Andrew Moloney, Director of Marketing at RSA, states that the attack location keeps shifting; therefore, it becomes very difficult to halt it as every time it is found, the attack shifts again, as reported by ITPro on June 5, 2009.

RSA in its report also states that the fast-flux botnets are getting more and more popular since they can be easily built. Sometimes, fraudsters hire such networks as well as content servers by paying a monthly fee.

According to the report, the Sinowal Trojan that RSA found in October 2008 is an important example. The security researchers said that it had a reliable and sophisticated communication infrastructure by which it was able to collect and forward data for full 3 years.

The fraud economy is basically commercialized to a level as has never seen before. In fact, the hurdles for a non-technical person to enter it have significantly brought down, said Moloney,

This was observed when 'fraud-as-a-service' emerged, according to which people didn't require to have technical skill to infect a computer with a Trojan virus or any other attack since they could just purchase the tool from the Internet. It was also expected that fraud-as-a-service would develop to newer model(s) by 2010 to boost growth in the fraud industry, according to RSA.

Moloney further states that he expects to see higher levels of advancement and attacking spree under evolving models. According to him, in the fraud economy, big deals of trade for personal credentials takes place, and the more improved the quality of such credentials, the higher the value for them.

Eventually, the report predicts that fraud at the enterprise level, now at a nascent stage, would grow to develop a trading zone for information.

Related article: RSA Attendees Responsible for Wireless Vulnerability

» SPAMfighter News - 6/10/2009