The malicious economy: well funding and growing strongly

Stuart Corner
Monday, 18 June 2007 17:55

Your IT - Home IT

Finnish security specialist, F-Secure's latest Internet and mobile security review paints a gloomy picture of online criminals able to generate ample funds from their exploits to invest in ever more sophisticated tools with which to perpetrate their crimes.

"The underlying trend to note is the spread of malicious activity across various forms of technology and applications during the six-month period, F-Secure said. "It would appear that the parties behind orchestrating security attacks are conquering more and more footholds to build a stronger, sustainable commercial economy based on carefully crafted security attacks targeting consumers, companies and public sector organisations."

F-Secure identified 'mobile malware' as a new and growing weapon in the cyber criminals' arsenal that is "making solid profits to support further development of the malicious economy."

"Adding to the construction of a stronger malicious economy of sophisticated security breaches, the mobile malware industry became more active during the last 6 months. "Personalised" SMS spam, financial lotteries, and Viver trojans masking themselves as utility programs are some of the examples of the fast-developing mobile scams. New spyware was also reported for some Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 3rd Edition devices."

Other recent trends identified in the report included social engineering reaching a new level of sophistication via the Small.DAM Trojan which wreaked havoc via e-mail in January, 2007. "Masking itself under the pretence of shocking headline news, linked to real-life events such as the January storms in Europe, the Storm-Worm spread at an alarming speed across the globe in just one night."