Harmful Polymorphic Malware Explosion

A recent analysis by Symantec discloses that there was an enormous rise in activity enumerated as one fast and forceful change in generic polymorphic malicious software, which the security company declared within its Intelligence Report for July 2011, reports MarketWatch on July 26, 2011.

The report stated that an increase of 23.7% has been discovered in intercepted virus laced e-mails, which is more than twofold increase since the past 6-months. Therefore, it demonstrates that cyber-criminals are executing an increasingly aggressive strategy according to the report.

Also, the e-mail-borne type of virus has been characteristically discovered within an executable inside one zipped file attachment that pretended to be a PDF document.

According to Senior Intelligence Analyst, Paul Wood at Symantec, the various samples of malware used within every assault has increased drastically by 25 times more the number 6-months back. Considering that the time-span is so short, this proliferation represents a disturbing trend, raising the potential of danger for numerous organizations as these samples are not easily detectable with conventional security defenses, Wood analyzes, reports Security Park on July 26, 2011.

Adding to the above, Senior Software Engineer, Martin Lee at Symantec stated that there was not ever a reverse of malware development and innovation. According to him, if the creators of malicious software learnt the skill of employing polymorphic methods that was clearly beneficial in malicious codes' dissemination, then that method would be observed increasingly during the utilization of the malicious software which was being circulated, reports ITPro on July 16, 2011.

Furthermore, the Symantec report also states that during July 2011, phishing e-mails were most targeted in UK, when 1 out of 127.9 e-mail messages constituted phishing e-mails. Also according to Symantec, a mean of 6,797 Internet sites were hosting malicious code as also other potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) like adware and spyware, accounting for a 25.5% rise from June 2011.

During July 2011, these phishing websites increasingly spoofed popular information services and social-networking websites, with the prime aim of committing ID-theft.

Related article: Harmful spam increased by eight times in Q3

» SPAMfighter News - 8/4/2011