Level of Malware Sophistication Surged in 2009

According to a latest report released by Kaspersky Lab, only a slight increase has been observed in the amount of new malware samples during 2009.

During the year, near about 15 Million samples of new malware were discovered corresponding to the rate of around 30,000 in a day. This rate is nearly similar to that observed in 2008.

Kaspersky said that even though the growth of new threats remained flat, malware that surfaced was more pervasive and sophisticated. The firm also noted that nine malware samples successfully infected over one million systems in 2009, whereas complex programs like polymorphic worms became commonplace.

For example, apart from becoming more common, malware groups with rootkit functionality also became noticeably more sophisticated. TDSS, Sinowal (the bootkit) and Clampi are some such threats which deserve a mention.

As per the report, China has become the leading malware source over the last three or four years. The firm spotted 73,619,767 network attacks last year, and 52.7% of these attacks emerged from China's Internet resources.

Further, as reported by the company, online fraud schemes, such as rogue anti-virus software, flourished in 2009, making a net profit of around $150 Million (£97 Million). In addition, attacks targeting Twitter and Facebook increased significantly over the year, and the firm anticipates that same trend will be followed this year as well.

Kaspersky Lab report also noticed that spam in e-mail traffic did not slump regardless of the impacts of global crisis. In 2009, the average spam volume in all e-mail traffic was 85.2%. The biggest single source was the US (16%). Russia's contribution in global spam volume was 8.5%. Using YouTube for video spam was the major innovation observed in spam in 2009. Use of mp3 attachments in spam was yet another big innovation.

Kaspersky Labs has anticipated that the year 2010 will witness a considerable rise in attacks via peer-to-peer networks, an increase in attacks through Google Wave, and the appearance of increasing number of grey schemes in the botnet services market.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/5/2010