New research by IBM Internet Security Systems’ X Force
research team has found that stealth attacks on internet users has
grown steadily every month. The team identified and analysed more
than 210,000 new malicious software (malware) samples in the first six
months of 2007. This number of new malware already exceeds the
total for the whole of 2006! The need to keep your PC safe using
utilities such as anti-virus protection and spyware removal seems more
necessary than ever.
Viruses, Worms and Trojans - Oh My!
One of the worrying trends reported by the IBM research team is the
growth in “managed exploit providers”. Gangs of
Internet criminals buy malware then encrypt it to stop other gangs from
stealing or copying it. The malware is then sold to spam
distributors around the world.
The most common form of malware found in 2007 so far has been
Trojans. A “Trojan” is a malware program which
installs malicious software while pretending to do something useful
– such as a special toolbar for Internet Explorer.
Also on the increase in 2007 is the use of obfuscation (deliberately
making program code difficult to read) as a means to hide or prevent
recognition by anti-virus protection programs. Some anti-virus
security programs use a signature-based method of detecting viruses
etc. This means that they have a database of known viruses and
what they “look” like. When they find a program that
is identical to something in their database it is identified as a
virus. Obfuscation techniques disguise the virus so it is not so
easily recognised by the anti-virus scanner. The IBM research
team found that obfuscation of malware had increased from 50% in 2006
to 80% in 2007.
There is some good news though. Apparently there has been a slight
decrease in the overall number of vulnerabilities reported when the
first half of 2007 was compared to the first half of 2006. A total of
3,273 vulnerabilities were identified in 2007 marking a decrease of 3.3
per cent compared to the first half of 2006.
