Tactics of Malware Attacks to Shift to Newer Technologies

According to predictions for 2008, cyber criminals will shift their tactics to target latest technologies like Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony. This scarcely used function is gradually drawing the notice of entrepreneurs who plan to combine VoIP with their business tours and for exchanging communications.

Technical Director of PandaLabs, Luis Corrons, said that the attacks would not just be on the existing platforms. As other systems like the iPhone gains popularity, malware authors would begin to exploit them to disseminate their malicious codes and reap benefits. Webuser published this in news on December 19, 2007.

It is also expected that threat creators would continue to have the same objectives as of today, i.e., stealing confidential information for online theft and fraud. Banking trojans will still be prevalent and there would be substantial growth in trojans that would steal personal data from users of Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites, as well as of online games. Already in 2007, theft of such data has transpired to a new model of online criminal business.

While malware attacks were being increasingly made sophisticated all along 2007, other new malware are getting more and more complex. These complex malware are a result of blending of different types of online threats. All indications suggest the continuation of this phenomenon through 2008.

Further, according to PandaLabs, malware like trojans or bots would be remotely controlled not just through Internet Relay Chat but also through the HTTP protocol or P2P (Peer-to-Peer) networks.

Meanwhile, McAfee, another security firm, has estimated about 360,000 distinct items of malware were circulating in the wild with an increase of 60% over 2006. Worse still, this figure will increase to 550,000 by the time 2008 ends depending on if the growth is just as fast, said McAfee. Webuser.co.uk published this on December 20, 2007.

According to Toralv Dirro of McAfee, crooks are never short of new material. Malware authors operating on a professional basis are all the time evolving their techniques by taking advantage of unwitting victims, while maintaining the same objective of detection bypass and churning out greater profits. Webuser.co.uk published this on December 20, 2007.

Related article: Thoughts on Using Malware to Catch Crime

» SPAMfighter News - 1/5/2008