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?"

Comments

Its nice to see people thinking about the future

[Crashmarik]

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.

Big Surprise

[Umbral Blot]

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.