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29 March 2024

Computer virus attacks increasing in Gulf

Computer virus attacks increasing in Gulf. (REUTERS)

Published
By Nancy Sudheer

Computer virus attacks are on the rise in the Gulf. Infections increased to 20.8 per cent in the first half of 2009 from 6.2 per cent in the second half of 2008, according to Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR).

For every 1,000 computers cleaned in the GCC in H1 2009, eight were infected due to an increase in attacks by worms, malware and trojans, said SIR, which is published twice every year.

Mark Chaban, commercial market strategy group director at Microsoft MEA, told Emirates Business: "On a general level there is an increase in infection rates, especially in worms, trojans, password stealing and also a lot attributed to the high piracy levels in the region. When pirated software is used, machines don't get updated and become vulnerable to worms."

The Microsoft security team detected 125,000 worms in the GCC.

"It is difficult to get into specifics as it depends on the ecosystem of the country. There were various kinds of attacks including worms such as conflicker," he said.

The threat landscape in the GCC is clearly dominated by malware, which accounted for 84.4 per cent of all threats detected on infected computers in H1. The most common category in the GCC was worms, which accounted for 27.8 per cent of families detected on infected computers in H1.

Win32/Taterf and Win32/Conficker, the top two families detected in the GCC in H1, are both worms. The second-most common category was miscellaneous trojans, which includes trojan families that are not classified as downloaders/droppers or backdoors.

Miscellaneous trojans accounted for 22.4 per cent of families detected on infected computers in H1.

Win32/C2Lop, the 18 most common family detected on computers worldwide in H1, ranks fourth in the GCC. C2Lop is a trojan that modifies web browser settings, adds web browser bookmarks to advertisements, updates itself, and delivers pop-up and contextual advertisements. It is sometimes distributed with the potentially unwanted software family Win32/MessengerPlu.

Worms rose from the fifth place in H2 2008 to become the second-most prevalent category in H1 2009. The prevalence of password stealers and monitoring tools also rose, due in part to increases in malware targeting online gamers.

The top category reported for data loss through a security breach in H1 2009 continued to be stolen equipment, such as laptop computers (30 per cent of all data-loss incidents reported), accounting for twice as many incidents as intrusion.

Security breaches from hacking or malware incidents remain less than 15 per cent of the total.

"Data loss and even stolen equipment is a global phenomenon, but has had an affect in the region. As job losses happen and lots of data gets transferred onto USB sticks, it becomes a major problem. Even for CIOs, internal assets and employees are a concern today. Encryption is one feature, which is needed by IT departments, as it helps them to control equipment to some extent. Even for CIOs based in the Gulf, controlling data is a challenge," said Chaban.

The progress that the software industry has made to better protect systems and customers might be small consolation to the users of those five million systems that were infected with Conficker in H1 2009. Still, it is a significant step forward, given that more than 100 times as many systems were protected from Conficker. This is in stark contrast to the Slammer and Blaster attacks of 2003 where many, many more systems were infected.

The world is undergoing an unprecedented rise in internet connectivity. The number of internet users worldwide more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2009 to 1.7 billion, a quarter of the earth's population, according to one estimate. Broadband penetration in the G7 industrialised nations rose by an average of more than 50 per cent per year between 2001 and 2008. These factors, along with a general lack of understanding of security threats, combined to create a large and growing attack surface across continents – perfect conditions for the rise of a new generation of malware.

Another significant development in recent years has been the rise of an underground economy for the distribution and use of malware. Whereas early threats were usually created and released by isolated individuals or small groups, many of the threats prevalent today are traded in online black markets, where criminals buy or rent access to exploits, password stealers, software for sending spam, and other illicit tools. Large botnets are rented out to attackers who use them for activities such as spam campaigns, hosting malware servers and phishing pages, and DDoS attacks.

 

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