Cybercriminals Exploited Software Vulnerabilities in Q2 2010

As per the data collected by Trend Micro between April (2010) and June (2010), cybercriminals took the advantage of vulnerabilities in the Adobe Reader software, Skype, Microsoft Windows Help Center and Adobe Flash Player to connect the users to a string of malware attacks in Q2-2010.

The report reveals that in India, the Internet and dropped-by malware represented the top most sources of personal computers infection at a rate of 55%. After this, there were removable and physical devices like flashdisks (35%) and emails (10%).

It is also reported that the current events such as the FIFA World Cup, 2010, were exploited by the cybercriminals for their malicious crimes.

Amit Nath, the Country Manager, India and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), Trend Micro, stated that spammed mails providing monetary rewards to users were found and asked for the personal information of user, according to the report published in The Economic Times on July 21, 2010,.

As per the report, it should be noted that FIFA and the GAZA attacks were used in Twitter-related assaults, which resulted into the malware download. Trend Micro experts have also detected a Twitter bot builder being spread freely on the internet. It can be used to perform denial-of-service threat.

In addition, the report mentions that old threats like phishing and spamming are consistently used to hack personal data. For instance - a spam pretending to be an Amazon newsletter was detected. It seemed as if was sent by Amazon e-mail email address, fooling the receiver to believe that it was authentic, Nath revealed, as reported by mydigitalfc on July 21, 2010.

Another finding highlights the increasing trend of social media relating attacks in Q-2, 2010. In recent times, KOOBFACE is the biggest Web 2.0 botnet, which used different social networking websites for its social networking schemes. The other noticeable attacks during this quarter were bunch of compromises, including Chinese computer brand Lenovo.

In the second quarter (Q-2, 2010), new threats like FAKEAV (fake anti-virus) and blackhat SEO (search engine optimization) emerged. The report also highlighted the detection of a malware, which only targets the Mac users and contained various free application and screensavers.

Related article: Cheburgen.a: A New Email Worm

» SPAMfighter News - 8/2/2010