Blended Threats & Bot Zombies to Prevail in 2008

Symantec's Senior Technical Security Consultant, Ivor Rankin, pointed out the main security risks for 2008. The development of hi-tech bot networks, sophisticated online risks and strikes on cell phones are the major security flaw trends to beware of in 2008, as indicated by Symantec.

As per Symantec, 'blended threats', the online security strikes that merge various methods, are about to become more widespread in 2008. The security company in its report, "2008 Cyber Threats Predictions" made by MXLogic Inc. and Symantec, and released by itbusiness.ca on December 7, 2007 details how these combined threats expose the manner in which malware distribution has become a "business model for the criminals".

These risks are especially dangerous since they employ multiple techniques to target known flaws - for example, blending aspects of hacking, Denial-of-Service attacks (DoS attack) and malware. This "combined" move distributes the attack and causes a great harm after a while.

Symantec also alleged that combined expertise among cyber criminals is about to reveal itself in different ways. For example, Symantec Corp. in a report, 'Trends to Watch in 2008', has forecasted that a "bot growth" is likely to witness phishing sites being controlled by bot zombies.

One more instance that the report provides is that of hacker gangs exploiting a blended threat to insert a system monitor on to a computer that harvests private data even as a user turns the computer into a spam zombie that emits countless spam e-mails purporting to originate from brands such as Viagra and Rolex.

A new trend that Symantec alleged to be surfacing is that of innovative Internet threats posed by MPack, a PHP-based malware kit created by Russian hackers in 2006. As per Wikipedia, it was utilized to compromise 160 000 computers with keylogging program and was exploited in August 2007 for a synchronized strike on a Bank of India site.

Symantec presumes that spam will keep on growing incessantly so as to avoid usual barring arrangements and dupes users into opening e-mails. The latest varieties of attachment, like MPEG-1 and flash, and pop culture frauds are progressively being used to center on making the subject matter alluring to users.

With the rising utilization of virtual worlds and multiplayer Internet gambling, Symantec stated that it anticipates observing other dangers appear as crackers focus on newfound territories.

Related article: Blended Malware Attacks On The rise

» SPAMfighter News - 12/22/2007