Government Backed Cyber Warfare will Persist during 2013: Kaspersky

Kaspersky the security company has just published its chief forecasts for 2013, according to which, the year will continue to have cyber-warfare that'll be government-backed. Last year (2012), researchers at Kaspersky Lab detected 3 prominent malware samples namely mini-Flame, Gauss and Flame that were employed for launching Internet warfare. Of these three spyware programs, Flame, significantly with a high longevity, worked as the biggest as well as the most advanced program, Kaspersky elucidates.

David Emm, Chief of Security at Kaspersky Lab states that the Flame project is as old as 5-yrs and it's regarded as a type of complex malware, which can stay undetected for pretty long. During this time, it gathers huge volumes of data; relevant services and products; and lots of confidential information from the infected computers, he adds. V3.co.uk published this dated December 31, 2012.

Moreover, researchers from Kaspersky Lab predict that more-and-more countries will create malicious programs to carry out cyber spying and Internet sabotage during 2013. Such assaults expectedly will disrupt critical infrastructures, businesses, in addition to government institutions.

Also, there'll be more exploit toolkits in 2013 which will constitute the most widely used items within cyber-criminals' collection of online-weapons. Such toolkits are devised so malware authors can raise their contamination levels. Also, while being packages of malware, these kits attack a system's various vulnerable areas at the same time. They help cyber-crooks to gain control over massive numbers of PCs and then proliferate malicious software to garner data. Normally, exploit toolkits attack Adobe Flash or Java, applications that are most vulnerable. The toolkits are traded on the underground at prices that extend over many thousand dollars.

Further, Kaspersky Lab's researchers as well predict that during 2013, there's a possibility of witnessing smaller botnets unlike during the past. The small-sized botnets apparently prove difficult to spot, particularly by the governments of nations. Unlike previously, when botnets were used for Distributed Denial-of-Services (DDoS) assaults and spamming activities, in 2013 the small-sized botnets will be employed for corporate-espionage and data-mining.

Finally, there'll occur, large installations of ransomware as well as crypto-extortion malicious programs, during 2013, forecasts Kaspersky.

Related article: Government Sways in Fresh Data Breach Scandal

» SPAMfighter News - 1/7/2013