Many computers are being attacked
all together that are infected differently. Targeted attacks attempt to infect
the network of a single target company or organization, or enter a specially
developed Trojan agent on a single server in the organization's network
infrastructure.
Who Is The Target?
Cybercriminals generally target
companies that process or store information that can be exploited by criminals
for personal gain. Typical objectives include:
Banks
Criminals attack the bank's
servers or network in order to access information and illegally transfer funds
from customers' bank accounts.
Billing companies, such as phone companies
When they choose a billing
company for an attack, criminals generally seek to access customer accounts or
steal valuable information, such as customer databases, financial information,
or technical data.
Bypass corporate security
Because large companies
(typically targeted by targeted computer virus attacks) tend to have a high
level of IT security, cybercriminals may need to resort to particularly cunning
methods. Since most organizations use an antivirus and other
measures to protect against external attacks, the criminal can seek help from
within the organization:
Phishing
Unknowingly, employees can help
the offender by responding to phishing emails, pretending to come from the
company's IT department and asking the employee to enter their password to
access the company's system to perform tests.
Using a false identity
In some cases, criminals can use
personal information they have collected from social networking websites to
assume the identity of a coworker to make the phishing request for usernames
and passwords appear genuine. This ploy helps prevent employees from being
suspicious when asked to enter their password.
Perhaps the most dangerous types
of malware writers are hackers and hacker groups who create malicious software
programs in an effort to achieve their own specific criminal goals. These
cybercriminals create computer viruses and Trojan horse programs that can:
·
Steal access codes to bank
accounts
·
Advertise products or
services on a victim's computer
·
Illegally using the
resources of an infected computer to develop and run:
·
Spam campaigns
·
Distributed network
attacks (also called DDoS attacks)
·
Extortion operations
The Reasons Behind Petty Theft
After the advent of Internet
services, including mail and web and hosting services, members of the
"computing underworld" looked for ways to benefit from these
services, without having to pay for them. These petty criminals used specially
developed Trojans to steal the login details and password of a legitimate user,
or to steal multiple user login details and passwords of multiple infected
computers.
Originally, many of these Trojans
were written by young people who could not pay for Internet services:
In 1997, Trojans designed to
steal AOL passwords emerged.
In 1998, Trojans of this type
began to affect other Internet services.
In later years, when the costs of
Internet services were reduced, these types of activities began to decline.
Current Threats Associated With Petty Theft
Despite reduced costs associated
with Internet services, Trojans that steal passwords for dial-up, AOL, and ICQ
access codes, as well as access codes for other services, still represent a
significant part of the daily internal flow cyber threats handled by antivirus
laboratories. However, additional forms of petty theft have also emerged:
The crooks are dedicated to
creating other types of Trojans, which steal account information and key files
of various program products and resources from infected computers, for their
benefit.
In recent years there has also
been a steady increase in the number of Trojans stealing personal information
from network games ("virtual property" of games) for unauthorized use
or resale.
How to Protect Yourself from Petty Theft?
Antivirus solutions that
combine signature-based detection, proactive heuristic analysis, and
cloud-assisted technologies can help protect your devices and data from both
known Trojans and new or emerging cyber threats.
There are various multi-layered antivirus software products
(combining powerful technologies that run on your device, plus cloud-assisted
services) to better protect the following computers:
Windows PC
Linux computers
Apple mac
Phones
Tablets
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