Malicious code is still on the rise — and e-mail is one of the most common attack vehicles. You’ve got to contend with viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, spam, data-storage challenges, phishing, disruption and downtime risks, and a host of other potential threats via one of your company’s most vital communications channels.
Unfortunately, there’s no end in sight. Despite the shutdown of two U.S.-based botnet hosting outfits that contributed to a significant decrease in active botnet activity during September and November 2008, botnet operators found alternate Web hosting sites and botnet infections quickly rose to pre-shutdown levels and resumed mass spamming.
Indeed, a well-organized underground economy specializing in the sale of confidential data continues to create malware aimed at stealing sensitive information.
Over the past year, Symantec observed a 192 percent increase in spam across the Internet, from 119.6 billion messages in 2007 to 349.6 billion in 2008. In 2008, bot networks were responsible for the distribution of approximately 90 percent of all spam. Again, there’s no end in sight.
“As malicious code continues to grow at a record pace, we’re also seeing that attackers have shifted away from mass distribution of a few threats to micro-distribution of millions of distinct threats,” said Stephen Trilling, vice president of Symantec Security Technology and Response. “Cybercriminals are profiting from creating and distributing customized threats that steal confidential information, particularly bank-account credentials and credit-card data. While the aboveground economy suffers, the underground economy has remained consistently steady.”
Antivirus Software Not Enough
Although corporations and antivirus firms have published security best practices that could help mitigate the risk, many users are ignoring them. A survey from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group reports 12 percent of respondents admit to replying to a spam message or clicking a link in a spam message because they were interested in a product or service the…