Security Researchers Need to Match Pace With Cybercriminals

Security experts at security firm McAfee have revealed in their Q2 Threats Report that malware issues continue to swell with botnets at their peak worms and trojans continuing to attack social networking websites. It has also noted that tools and services are still facilitating attackers in developing new malwares.

In the wake of aforementioned facts, it has been observed that when it comes to fight malware, researchers have to keep a check on the present activities and should look out for the signs that may be indicating towards the potential security threat in the coming times.

Security experts commented that although most of the malware attacks stick to the tried and trusted techniques, malware developers are improving at finding more efficient and sophisticated ways to fight back against the security specialists who are obstructing their illegal business. A famous example of this is the Conficker worm that disabled anti-virus updates by restricting infected PCs from accessing the websites of security firms.

Dan Ryan, general manager and executive vice president, Network Security Business Unit of McAfee said that with Web being increasingly used and growing more and more advanced, Web-borne malware assaults are bound to surge, reported digital50.com on September 15, 2009.

Many security professionals, however, said that they are looking forward to some defensive mechanism of the present day malware to be more sophisticated and refined as cyber crooks try to evade network defenses and security researchers in a more or less similar way.

For instance, there are certain malicious programs that are capable of recognizing when they are being executed in a virtual set up. Danny Quist, CEO, Offensive Computing, has even noted that the researchers hopping across different websites can get easily infected in such an environment, reported e-week.com on September 19, 2009.

One threat at which the many security experts consented was the most surreptitious rootkit - Mebroot, also known as Torpig. Mebroot has been associated with the theft of enormous data, including around 10,000 bank accounts as well as credit card numbers in a time span of just 10 days.

In the news published by e-week.com on September 19, 2009, John Pescatore, analyst at Gartner, concluded that it's high time for the security purveyors to think above the signature-based detection.

Related article: Securities Push Up A Must For Web Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 10/12/2009