News

Cybercrime '09: Too Late to Save Facebook?

Flash files, Facebook are the hottest new targets for attacks, says research

By Joan Goodchild, Senior Editor

Page 2

"Not only is the United States relaying the most spam because too many of its computers have been compromised and are under the control of hackers, but it's also carrying the most malicious webpages," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, in a statement. "We would like to see the States making less of an impact on the charts in the coming year. American computers, whether knowingly or not, are making a disturbingly large contribution to the problems of viruses and spam affecting all of us today."

Sophos's officials also said that in 2008, organized criminal gangs tripled their attacks against websites, injecting malicious code to infect visiting home users and businesses. 2008 also saw an increase in efforts by hackers to pose as legitimate anti-virus vendors, creating new professional-looking websites and applications every day with the intention of scaring users into believing that their computers have been compromised. On average, Sophos identified five new scareware websites every day, with the figure peaking at over 20 per day on occasion.

The report also documents a rise in hackers spamming out malicious attachments, designed to compromise PCs in order to steal identities, money and resources. By the end of 2008, Sophos was tracking five times more malicious attacks arriving through files attached to emails than at the start of the year.

Like Finjan, Sophos said Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, continue to be of interest to spammers and malware who break into users' accounts to take advantage of trusted social networks, and send spam and malware.

"The last year proved beyond doubt that Internet hacking gangs are organized like never before, often working across borders to steal money and data from unsuspecting users. The volume of attacks has increased, with hackers using automated systems to break into vulnerable websites or generate new variants of their malware," said Cluley. "People need to wake up to the reality that the completely legitimate website they are visiting could be harboring a dangerous malware infection planted by hackers. As we enter 2009 we are not expecting to see these assaults diminish. As economies begin to enter recession it will be more important than ever for individuals and businesses to ensure that they are on guard against Internet attack."