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Predicting Malware
Pseudonymous B*ard writes "SANS has an interesting article showing how to predict what forms future malware will take. For example, last year there were many hurricane-related scams, while this year, another bad hurricane season is predicted. SANS has noticed that the scammers are gearing up for this and that many new domains with the words Alberto, Beryl, donation, and hurricane have been registered (Alberto & Beryl are the first two names on the hurricane list). The only question now is whether hackers will be able to preempt any of these scams before they have a chance to be used?"
But this boils down to Malware will likely be associated with major events. Color me unimpressed. I have another one future malware will exploit unpatched security flaws.
Obligatory grammar post.
"Last year X, while this year X again." "And" for pete sakes. If you are comparing two things which are the same in nature but different in time, it should be "and". "While" would be used if, say, it was hurricanes last year and earthquakes this year (i.e., things which are different in their nature).
Unpleasantries.
Summary of article: malware authors may try to take advantage of disasters. That's not exactly cutting edge reporting. What I would be more interested in hearing about is if malware authors start creating rumors of disasters in order to cash in anyways if nothing bad happens. Let's say Alberto fizzles. Will we still get spam asking for donations to help the newly homeless? I guess I'll have to wait and see.
Philosophy.
Clearly, the solution is to infect natural disasters with malware before they can strike.
As much as I think it sucks that people would actually do such things, they do. And they have been doing it for ages (anyone up to buy a bridge?). In the "real world" people still get caught in naughty scams, but maybe they are a little more aware nowadays. When online, however, I guess most people lower the guard; maybe it is "the internet" or the fact that it is in written form that gives some sense of seriousness to them. Add to it the fact that the vast majority of internet users does not know how easy it is to register ANY domain name in the US and there you are...
A little more education might be useful here. Also, maybe there should be a little higher barriers to domain registration. In Brazil, it is a little more difficult to set-up a domain name: you have to have an actual company, otherwise you have to restrict yourself to the "personal" TLDs. This was originally put in place to avoid a parallel market for domain names (much like what exists in the US today; in Brazil, the registrar is government-managed).
In the end, however, many people are just naïve. It would be nice if that could be a compliment...
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Go on, then, get to it.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I have to ask this, just who is SANS, anyway? We get tons of alarmist reports from them, but nobody ever checks the source. I haven't been able to find much more than this entry on Wikipedia: "The SANS Institute (SysAdmin, Audit, Networking, and Security) is a trade name owned by the for-profit Escal Institute of Advanced Technologies. SANS provides computer security training, professional certification, and a research archive . It was founded in 1989."
And Wiki doesn't even have an entry for "Escal Institute of Advanced Technologies". Try Google, there's also next-to-nothing there. I don't like placing a lot of trust in something when I don't even know the source.
Does anyone have any more information?
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
IMHO, the far more likely purpose of registering domains related to the next hurricane names are simply for SPAM. When the hurricanes hit, tens of thousands of people will mistype or find some other way of ending up on what I expect will be plain old ad serving pages. Considering the miniscule costs of setting this up, I'd suspect that it would make a few bucks. Especially compared to some of the other ad based domains I've stumbled on in the past...
This wouldn't be a problem if the Federal government wasn't in such a hurry to shovel cash out the door everytime there's a natural disaster to some politician's poll numbers.
Bzzzt! Wrong! This is about scammers tricking Mr. and Mrs. Citizen to send them money "to help hurricane victims". It has nothing to do with money the Feds may, or may not, send out.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I am not sure about you, but to me malware is clearly distinct from e-mail scams.
Malware is a program that do nasty things to your computer. e-mail scams have nothing to do with that.
He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the malware came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!