Spend $700 to be an expert cyber criminal

BANGALORE, INDIA: Are you looking for a 'career' in cyber attack? Don't worry. All that you have to spend is $700, which means less that Rs 35,000.

This is what the latest Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec says. The report also said during the past 12 months there has been a significant increase in the sales of crimeware - or attack kits.

“A crimeware kit is a toolkit that allows people to customize a piece of malicious code designed to steal data and other personal information. The Zeus kit can be purchased for as low as $700, but it can also be found for free on some forums,” said the report.

It also said these kits can be bought in the underground economy and various Web forums. Crimeware kits like Zeus make it easier for unskilled attackers to compromise computers and steal information. These kits allow anyone who buys them to customize them to their own needs.

Symantec said, in 2009, it observed nearly 90,000 unique variants of the basic Zeus toolkit and it was the second most common new malicious code family observed in the APJ region during this time.

India tops in virus threat

The report also said the largest contributing countries for virus threats in 2009 were India, Egypt, and Brazil, with top-ranked India having approximately twice the infection count of second-ranked Egypt. India and Brazil are two countries specifically cited as countries expected to increase in their

share of malicious activity, added the report. The growth of viruses in 2009 in these countries bears this out.

India also experienced a surge in malicious activity in 2009, moving from 11th for overall malicious activity in 2008 to fifth in this period. In 2009, India also accounted for 15 per cent of all malicious activity in the Asia-Pacific/Japan (APJ) region, an increase from 10 percent in 2008.

For specific categories of measurement in the APJ region, India increased rank in malicious code, spam zombies and phishing hosts from 2008. Its high ranking in spam zombies also contributed to India being the third highest country of spam origin globally.

As per the report, the top Web-based attacks observed in 2009 primarily targeted vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and applications that process PDF files. Because these two technologies are widely deployed, it is likely that attackers are targeting them to compromise the largest number of computers possible.

Of the Web browsers analyzed by Symantec in 2009, Mozilla Firefox had the most reported vulnerabilities, with 169, while Internet Explorer had just 45, yet Internet Explorer was still the most attacked browser. This shows that attacks on software are not necessarily based on the number of vulnerabilities in a piece of software, but on its market share and the availability of exploit code as well, said Symantec.

Symantec also said more than 240 million new malicious programs were discovered last year, which showed a 100 per cent year-on-year increase in new malware. According to Symantec solutions architect Sian John, one new botnet-infected computer is detected worldwide every 4.6 seconds.