Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 10:02
Business IT -
Security
Page 2 of 3
“Cutwail’s activity levels fell by as much as 90 percent
following the disconnection of Real Host, but in a matter of days it
was back to its former self, demonstrating just how powerful the
Cutwail botnet really is in recovering and reinventing itself. ISPs
have been blamed for helping botnet activity in the past, and taking
these services down when unusual behavior is monitored is an important
part of the battle against cybercrime.”
According to Wood, despite this brief variation
in spam levels, the overall figures for August remain fairly steady at
88.5 percent, due to the activity levels of other major botnets such as
Rustock, Mega-D and Donbot.
“Taking advantage of the heightened interest in health related issues
due to the current swine flu pandemic, Donbot recently distributed its
largest shortened-URL spam run to date, distributing an estimated 10
billion pharmaceutical-focused spam messages in one day. Subjects
include ‘Health care – get meds now’, ‘Save 89% on Meds’, ‘Purchase
Meds Online’.”
Wood also says that the ongoing use of shortened-URLs as a delivery
mechanism has resulted in a number of URL-shortening services being
forced to close their businesses due to their inability to handle the
malicious use of their tools.
In its report Symantec also highlights how cybercriminals are three
times as likely to favour repurposing malware across numerous domains
rather than developing new tactics.
CONTINUED page 3
LATEST HEADLINES FROM YOUR IT
