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Malnet Poses Security Threat

In the 2012 report published by the Blue Coat Systems, malnets have been interpreted as a different entity from the botnets. Malnets are present within the internet and in the heck of visiting reliable websites, users end up in compromising their systems, as per news published in SC MAGAZINE on February 13, 2012. These malnets are configured and maintained by the cyber crooks with the purpose of launching various attacks against naive users for a long time with the aim of hacking personal details or captivating the computers of ignorant users and turning them into botnets.

In the report, Blue Coat has presented a detailed description of the strategies and tactics incorporated by the malnet operators for condemning and entrapping the end-users into compromising the computers with malware.

According to Chris Larsen, Senior malware Researcher at Blue Coat Systems, the ease of purchasing, customizing, and deploying malicious software kits, together with the advantage of faster circulation through domains, hiked the growth of malware to an increasing 240%. However, with the average business facing 5,000 threats per month, the identification and tracking down of malnets for blocking attacks at the source is itself the most-effective protection, as per the news in MarketWatch on February 13, 2012.

The report also signifies that the most familiar entry path of these spiteful infrastructures depends on least resistance and exploiting the pathway for entering that can be subjugated easily, such as search engines/portals and email, or are utilized by large, diverse populations of users. The popularity of launching attacks through Malnets is indicated through search engines or portals, in which one out of 142 searches leads to malevolent links.

Blue Coat Security Firm also confirmed that though the frequency of these attacks differs by country, the potential of these attacks is growing throughout the world with the expansion of social networks.

By the report, five main categories of malnets are there; 'Shnakule' being the most dominant and specialized in delivering drive-by download attacks, rogue anti-virus and fake Firefox, and Adobe updates. The functionalities of these malnets vary with Glomyn malnet mainly used for distributing spam and Naargo and Cinbric for spreading adult content.

Nonetheless, according to Senior Product Marketing Manager at Blue Coat, David Albohair, the actual functionality of malnet is to download software for the end-user for the creation of a kind of botnet, so literally online activities are not safe, as reported in SC MAGAZINE on February 13, 2012.

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