SPAMfighter News - 4 new articles

 

Here are the latest updates for raplist.antispamsite@blogger.com "SPAMfighter News" - 4 new articles Zombie Driven Spam Becoming More Common Spammers Misusing Google's Web 2.0 Services Spammers Could Take Advantage of O.J. Simpson Prosecution New Phishing Attacks Target Bank Customers Search SPAMfighter News Zombie Driven Spam Becoming More Common According to Symantec's latest 'State of Spam' report, malware-laced e-mails are becoming common day-by-day compared to what they were during January-June 2008. It has also estimated that about 1.2% of the total e-mail sent carries some malicious payload. On the whole, it discovered that spam accounts for 78% of the entire global e-mail. Moreover, the researchers discovered that while .rar and .zip files attached to e-mails were highly popular methods to spread malicious programs, adding exploit code to the messages' source code was also getting popular. The rise in addition of exploit code in message source code started in May 2008 and has continued till now, states the report, as reported by Vnunet on October 7, 2008. Moreover, the most dominant spam attacks involved computer-related services or the Internet (24%), and monetary affairs-related e-mails (20%), representing spammers' maximum abuse of the US housing market crisis and the overall economic instability. Also, according to the report, most of the malevolent payloads detected were generic Trojan horses, information-stealing and downloader applications. While Trojan attacks accounted for 13.4% of all malware detections, info-stealers and downloaders comprised 11.1% and 11.8% of all malware respectively. Moreover, the Pandex Trojan spread most commonly through spam, followed by W32.IRCBot and the Goldun Trojan. Further, China was the most favored origin to generate the malevolent spam mails, followed by the Republic of Korea, the US, Thailand and Vietnam in that order, the report states. However, according to Symantec, the most outrageous development is related to the increase in zombie systems worldwide. Security specialists state that a 'zombie' system is a computer, which has been succumbed to a virus attack and is under a bot's control. Furthermore, the researchers at Symantec said that in August 2008, the total number of zombies distributing spam dropped 37%, but it leaped 101% in September 2008, and the primary region to drive this rise was EMEA. Among the EMEA countries, Turkey was found generating the most zombie IP addresses. Hence, the company warns that users need to increase their awareness of e-mail links and attachments in order to reverse the prevailing outrageous trend. • Email to a friend • Related • Spammers Misusing Google's Web 2.0 Services According to Websense, spammers are increasingly using Google's Web 2.0 services for launching various malicious attacks through social engineering tactics. By opening an e-mail account with Google's free mailing service, Gmail enables users to access different services offered by the company. This availability allows malware authors and spammers promote their services and products using Gmail, Google Docs, Google Pages, Google Sites, Blogger and YouTube services. Security specialists said that Web 2.0 aims to improve, information sharing, user creativity, functionality and collaboration on the Web. However, malware authors and spammers abuse this power to launch a range of attacks that threaten the functionality of Web 2.0. Researchers at Websense also reveal that spammers have an inclination to successfully reach their prospective customers through e-mail, Web 2.0 and other Web services. These spammers and malware creators employ a unified approach to execute their attack methods that they keep interchanging; thereby, enhancing their underground economy. Recently, spammers joined different Google Web 2.0 services and used them to launch a variety of attacks. Now they are opening fake accounts on BlogSpot and YouTube to advertise their products and services by abusing the two services. The fake accounts on YouTube promote a number of videos on the same subject with inappropriate content, clearly violating the usability terms of YouTube services. Furthermore, the profiles of these fake accounts on YouTube promote the fake BlogSpot accounts, and this act as entry pages to reach spam domains. The fake Blogger accounts in turn create a network of spam blogs called 'splogs'; thereby, creating a 'splogospere'. Its objective is to push the real spam domain by clearly abusing the usability terms of Blogger services. Security specialists said that problems of security are inevitable when users are able to avail privileges like content creation, content distribution, file uploading, and direct HTML editing. These capabilities are misused by spammers and malware writers. Meanwhile, although Web 2.0 service providers continuously make efforts to fight the misuse of their services, the malware authors, phishers and spammers keep waging attacks through them, demonstrating their malicious adaptability to e-mail and misusing Web 2.0 and other Web security services. • Email to a friend • Related • Spammers Could Take Advantage of O.J. Simpson Prosecution According to a warning released by security company MX Logic, users should watch out for spams talking about the guilty verdict of O.J. Simpson, an ex-professional and famous football player. According to the reports, a Las Vegas jury found Simpson guilty on October 3, 2008 of a number of charges stemming from the robbery of a pair of sports memorabilia merchants in 2007. The judgment came after thirteen years when Simpson's was pardoned of the assassinations of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson along with her friend Ronald Goldman. The company's security experts state that spammers could exploit this news episode to serve their malicious purposes. According to Sam Masiello, Vice President of Information Security at MX Logic, every time a sensational news story arises, spammers use it as bait to trick people into clicking a link in to download their malicious programs, as reported by Computerworld on October 6, 2008. Meanwhile, although MX Logic has not spotted any spam relating to Simpson, Masiello said that the company's researchers have found clues of an imminent campaign. According to Masiello, MX Logic has found corrupt search hits on Microsoft's Live Search that point to some Live Spaces entertaining bogus video codecs. The tactic, called "search engine poisoning" is often used together with malware spam. Furthermore, the researchers at MX Logic said that online criminals attempt to fool search engines, and get them to rank malevolent sites high on the list of results by flooding message boards and blogs with fake entries that automated bots add. Masiello commented that the criminals would use anything to push up their chosen results on search engines. Moreover, the security researchers say that the most probable Simpson spam strategy would be similar to the massive August 2008 spam campaigns that enticed the users into visiting malware-laden Websites by promising to show video films from the MSNBC and CNN news channels. Through those spams, cyber miscreants tricked users into downloading a malicious exploit code by lying them that it was a necessary codec to run the video. • Email to a friend • Related • New Phishing Attacks Target Bank Customers SonicWall, an online security firm, said that it has been closely following e-mails that try to attract users to fake bank sites on the pretext of verifying personal and banking details as a part of some merger. These fraudulent e-mails are known as phishing mails and they contain computer viruses, malicious content and malware to purloin personal information of online users for financial gains. One example of such fake e-mails is acquisition of Washington Mutual by Chase. People affected by this acquisition are receiving e-mails that direct them to click on link for identity verification so that Chase activates new security features for both old and new online banking customers. The security firm (SonicWall) has also warned users against e-mails containing titles like "Mail Alert! Chase Upgrade its XP installed problems" and "Free Download from Chase for Upgrade". Hence, with the acquisition of Washington Mutual, over 40 Million customers of Chase bank are at risk of falling victim to the phishing scam. Andrew Klein, Product Manager, SonicWall, said that the links given in the e-mail direct users to a fraudulent Website of Chase bank and ask for log-in and other personal information, as reported by cnetnews on October 2, 2008. Klein further adds that scammers are harvesting the information for selling it to cyber criminals who can use it to phish off victims' accounts and committing ID fraud. Apart from this, scammers and phishers exploit current affairs to attract visitors on malware loaded Websites or those that ask for information. Moreover, cyber criminals closely follow the search trends on Google to identify the popular trends and integrate them on to their sites so that victims could be attracted to their sites. But this phishing technique is particularly dangerous, says the company. Meanwhile, people in the UK have also fallen victim to phishing scams exploiting growing concerns on the global economy. Similarly, APACS, the UK Payment Association, has revealed that online banking fraud in the country surged 185% in the first six months of 2008, causing loss of around £21.4 Million. • Email to a friend • Related •

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