Slumping Economy Driving Malware Threats

McAfee announced its 2009 threat predictions. The top trend to emerge for
2009 is the continued exploitation of the financial crisis to scam users with
fake financial transactions services, fake investment firms, and fake legal
services. The report examines the accuracy of last year's predictions and
provides new insight as to where computer security threats are headed this year.

“Computer users face a dangerous one-two punch today,” said Jeff Green,
Senior VP of McAfee Avert Labs, McAfee's research group. “The current economic
crisis is delivering a blow to our financial well-being, while malware authors
are taking advantage of our distraction to deliver a roundhouse strike.”

McAfee Threat Predictions for 2009:

Threats hide in the cloud

Miscreants have also transitioned to the Internet “cloud” as their main
delivery vehicle and take advantage of the attractions of Web 2.0. McAfee
expects this trend to continue throughout 2009, eventually displacing more
traditional vectors of malware distribution.

Threats in your language

Threats will continue to take evasive action against security measures. One
example is the existence of single-use binary files, which are an attacker's
equivalent of a single-use credit card number used by consumers when shopping
online. These binaries help to create a vast sea of threats, which will make it
harder for victims to describe their assailants, and make it harder for
defenders to catch them. Additionally, McAfee expects to see the continued
expansion of malware in languages other than English. Cybercriminals have come
to realize that by diversifying into a global market they can access even larger
pools of valuable identity and confidential information.

Malware targets consumer devices

McAfee expects increased attacks involving USB sticks and flash-memory
devices used in cameras, picture frames, and other consumer electronics. This
trend will continue due to the almost unregulated use of flash storage across
enterprise environments as well as their popularity among consumers.

The rogue web and malvertising

Last year McAfee also saw the malware underground use mainstream practices
in an effort to “sell” software that was either misleading or outright
fraudulent. McAfee expects this trend to continue as cybercriminals still see a
lucrative market in this area.

McColo: The effects of a takedown

Spam traffic took a tremendous dive in volume when ISPs pulled the plug on
spam host McColo Corp, the source of up to 60 percent of worldwide spam. In
2009, we will see a continued shift in organizations, from passive support of
law enforcement to an active role of working collaboratively with ISPs and
global Internet entities such as ICANN. Together, these organizations will shine
the public light on these malicious actors and shut down their access to network
and systems infrastructure.