Hiring quality assurance testers, employing botnets to develop, distribute malicious code
Cybercriminals are becoming more business savvy in their efforts to profit by worming into business networks to steal passwords and other sensitive data, according to a recent security survey from Cisco. In this report from colleague Tim Greene, he explains that the Cisco survey finds crackers selling their malware start-up kits online are hiring quality-assurance testers for their malicious code, as well as botnets for quick distribution.
The evil doers are also profiting by selling start-up kits to other cybercriminals. A Zeus Trojan kit for stealing login data is available for $700, Greene reports.
The efforts are as impressive as they are dastardly: Cisco for the first time is passing out awards for the most prolific infections. The Most Audacious Criminal Operation honor went to Zeus, which has infected an estimated 4 million machines and includes a versatile botnet that could be used for a variety of attacks.
The Most Notable Criminal Innovation is Koobface, Greene reports, a worm that lures users to a YouTube video that encourages Flash player updates. The updates they download are actually the worm that gathers sensitive information from infected machines.
Koobface is an example of a worm that exploits social network sites, which account for 2% of workplace Web traffic, the Cisco survey states. So beware the social networker at work…
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