Malware Developers Now Providing Technical Support

Gunter Ollmann, VP of Research, Damballa, has said that some malware developers will provide technical assistance to people who would buy their illegal wares. These wares apparently come packed with ticketing systems and help-desks, Ollmann says, as reported by MX Logic on December 31, 2009.

According to other security researchers, the underworld of cyber crime is so highly advanced that it is possible to carry out the trade between malware developers and purchasers of their wares, and other associated businesses.

The trade is pretty competitive. These providers of illegal wares compete in terms of providing the best "Do-It-Yourself" malware kits along with customer-based differentiated support, said Ollmann, as reported by EWeek Security Watch on December 30, 2009.

Ollmann further reveals that Furio Gaming - a widely known distributor of botnet programs and backdoor trojans - provides technical support to customers asking for it. It also provides services of bot-infections at a pre-determined fee. In these services, people can buy time-slots when Furio's people will infect the maximum number of computers possible with a selected bot.

Furio Gaming isn't the only provider of botnet services operating an all-inclusive help-desk ticketing arrangement, but they're the most sophisticated distributor of the services Ollmann has seen, the researcher adds.

Resembling Furio Gaming is Virtest.com - the provider of quality assurance (QA) for malware. This service draws over 800 visitors daily. Ollmann has said that malware-scanning websites have exploded during July-December 2009. Such websites help professional attackers and assure them to keep the submitted samples confidential, describes the researcher.

Besides, there are different support services which people providing malware exclusively use. One such service is based in Russia with which malware developers can test if leading anti-virus software can detect their creations. These services, however, aren't free.

Ollmann has also said that cyber crime along with the effective unleashing of fresh malware components of botnets was integral to QA -the test of current anti-viruses' ability to detect new malware. The QA test was done before the malware programs were released and guaranteed of being evasive, he added.

Related article: Malware Authors Turn More Insidious

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