Solutionary says that Amazon Cloud Service is Haven of Malware in US

Public cloud of e-commerce giant Amazon is the largest asylum of malware spreaders in the US as per the claims made by security company Solutionary in its recently released "Quarterly Threat Intelligence Report" for Q4-2013.

The security firm also deems in its report that Amazon Web Services (AWS) along with 'Google' are most favored by malware-slinging cybercriminals.

The report stated the cloud has become a preferred mode for malicious actors who are using cloud computing for the same reasons which legitimate customers are using.

It asserted that the simplicity of website creation, low prices of web-hosting and that Amazon and Google-provided Internet Protocol (IP) addresses tend to be believed on the World wide web made the pools of computer of the pair an outstanding establishment for malware.

The report also stated that crooks are exploiting services such as Amazon and GoDaddy by either purchasing services straightforwardly or by hijacking authentic domains. These service providers are probable targets owing to the transitory nature of their numerous users and the lack of official hardening.

Amazon has taken an active stance on its abusive customers. In 2009, after reports of a botnet controller living on AWS surfaced, the company said that it had located the offending malware and shut it down. Amazon also operates an e-mail hotline dedicated to handle reports of AWS abuse.

But this has not stopped cybercriminals from taking advantage of cloud service of Amazon as recently, AWS was found to be hosting SpyEye, a Trojan that allow hackers to gain access to the online accounts of banking customers.

Amazon has argued that they can find the malware on its own system much better way where it can be cordoned off and eliminated rather than have it hosted on the servers of other less responsive companies.

Washingtonpost.com published a report on 16th January, 2014 quoting Amazon as "We take security very seriously and investigate all reported vulnerabilities."

Data from Solutionary also showed that during last three months in 2013, the US was the world's no one malware hosting nation with 44% of the global share of malware which was five times larger than Germany with 9% share of malware and second leading malware hosting nation as detected by the company's security research team.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/27/2014