Future Trends of Malware

An anonymous reader writes "What are the driving forces behind the rise of malware? Who's behind it, and what tactics do they use? How are vendors responding, and what should organizations, researchers, and end users keep in mind for the upcoming future? All these questions and more are answered in the well written (MHO) Future Trends of Malware"

Comments

Categories by goal

[G4from128k]

Malware can be categorized by the goal of the creator. This can include:

1. Marketing: Redirecting browser windows or overlaying pop-ups to promote a product or service
2. Phishing: attacking an individual to extract passwords that let a criminal access the victim's accounts or identity
3. Vandalism: Wanton destruction of a PC or network
4. Spam Broadcasting: creating and controlling a botnet for spamming
5. Extortion: Forcing a company to pay a ransom to avoid a DDoS or the triggering of an embedded bit of malware.
6. Vilgilantism: Attacking P2P, spamming, or phishing networks to forestall perceived illegal activity
7. Espionage: Illegally accessing company or country's secrets
8. Military: Damaging an opponent country's IT infrastructure

Note that some of these goals target individuals and their PCs whereas other target larger organizations. One key commonality of nearly all of the goals is that they target large numbers of PCs or require large numbers of infected machines to achieve the goal. Thus immunological approaches that look for the spread of unusual code or data packet patterns can help address this problem. On the other hand, immunological approaches won't work if the malware attack targets a single individual or company -- e.g. implanting a unique virus in one computer in a company for purposes of espionage or extortion.

Note that half of the goals are very different from the stereotypical destructive virus or worm of yesteryear. With the exception of vandalism, extortion, vigilantism, and military, the other goals are essentially non-destructive. The malware creator's goals are not achieved if the malware crashes the target machine.

Re:56% increase in trust in AntiVirus

[igb]

I'm not quite sure what `parents' has to do with it. A huge proportion of the population, with or without children, falls into one of three categories:

• They don't know spyware or viruses from a hole in the ground, and they either re-install or buy a new computer every time their machine gets too slow
• OR they believe their firewall and/or AV product is total protection, and they convince themselves that their machine isn't slow and isn't behaving badly, even when it it
• OR they simply accept that computers are shit and tolerate it running badly.

A certain sort of quasi-autistic geek then makes snotty comments and plays ``blame the victim'' by pointing out all the measures that the victim could have taken. The real solutions are:

• For operating system vendors to sort out their problems. Oh, OK, for one particular OS vendor to sort out its problems.
• For law enforcement to stop treating the perpetrators as cute kids, and actually do something serious about the issue.

Blaming the victim just isn't on. `We' (ie people who provide computer and telecommunication services) sold them a machine. It's up to us to make sure it behaves reasonably. There's an ``Unsafe at Any Speed'' brewing, if but we could see it.

ian