New trends in the hacker environment

New trends in the hacker environment
In recent months, SoftScan has seen a new trend in the hacker environment. There is a lot to indicate that IT criminals have moved their focus from primarily relying on spam to, once again, focusing on viruses, but now to a higher degree.

The type of viruses IT criminals use are modifications of old, known virus attacks, which make it easier and faster to send out many and concentrated virus attacks. Virus attacks, like the ones today, focus on unnoticed access to the user's bank information, passwords, and digital profiles or for example, to infect the computer and use it as part of a larger botnet*.

Old wine in new bottles
The method IT criminals use is the old and well-known method, whereby they send out mails with damaging content. But today, the damaging content is not necessarily in the email but, for example, on the website to which the recipient is guided. This means then, that it is no longer enough to just focus on what lands in the inbox. It has now also become a critical security question to take a look at which websites are being used.

Higher concentration of attacks
From January to May 2008, the number of virus-infected emails each month was stable at approx. 0.1% of the emails SoftScan scans. But from June onwards, we have witnessed virus attacks at a higher level than in all the months in 2008 previously.

As indicated in the graph below, the virus attacks are sent in large waves with the purpose of having as wide an impact as possible. Many recipients already have a solution to remove viruses, but the larger the concentration sent out, the greater the chances of impacting an unprotected recipient.

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