Phishing Attacks Surging With Proliferating DIY Cybercrime Kits

DIY (do it yourself) cybercrime kits are propelling a surge in computer infections via Internet, said security experts.

The experts added that for quite some time now, these kits have been a very basic and an indispensable element in the cyber-underground. They are economic to purchase and have also become increasingly user-friendly

In order to conduct phishing attacks at a higher rate, both the veterans as well as newbie criminals are relying on DIY kits, as reported by usatoday.com on January 18, 2010.

One of the major concerns of the researchers is that as these phishing kits are propagating rapidly, cyber crooks who were previously not interested in such a crime realized that they were finally able to enter the world of cybercrime, and they did not waste time to grab the opportunity.

DIY kits range from $400 to $700, facilitating assailants with all the things required to infect a system. Further, the phishers can very conveniently make modifications in the messages as per their needs because most of DIY kits are customizable.

Resultantly, a single kit is enough to launch a host of fraudulent e-mail messages, which are specially designed to look like legitimate messages sent from IRS, FedEx, or UPS; or alarming people through medical alerts regarding the H1N1 flu, or even account updates sent from Facebook, Microsoft Outlook or Vonage.

Fred Touchette, senior researcher at AppRiver, commented that it was easy to predict the campaigns at the beginning of 2009, and that they evolved from known sources. Though, with the year approaching to end, the kits increased in availability. As a result of which, the amount of e-mails that were blocked was 10 times more than the previous average. Also, these e-mails appeared to be coming from new sources around the world, reported Help Net Security on January 18, 2010.

While these attacks are continuously growing, a few experts retraced the evolution of DIY kits, which first came into appearance in August 2007. The kit was designed to make it convenient for the phisher, owning the phishing page, to access a URL. The criminals, however, acknowledged the potential the DIY kit market has, and thereby started churning heavy profits with the help of these kits.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 1/28/2010