Security Vault - Malware Threat Landscape

Modern malware is the primary method to build botnets, which are massive groups of compromised, remotely controlled machines used to steal customer data, perpetrate online fraud, and take intellectual property. Botnets are a widely dispersed threat making them particularly difficult to combat solely in the service provider cloud or only locally within organizational networks and endpoints. Rather, a coordinated local and global security mechanism is required.

Nearly one in four Internet-connected PC is now infected with stealth malware, typically delivered via the Web, equipped with 'remote control' capabilities. This enables unauthorized access into a network and unsanctioned use of the PC for a range of purposes, from DDoS and spam to identity theft and corporate espionage. 'Botnet' is the term referring to this collection of centrally-managed, compromised machines, and consists of a few thousand to upwards of millions of organized machines.

FBI statistics indicate cybercrime cost U.S. businesses $67 billion through a range of illegal activities:

• Data and services theft
• Intellectual property & customer identity theft
• Click fraud and spam distribution
• Extortion schemes (using DDoS) against e-commerce sites
• Cyber-terrorism against national IT infrastructures

"...the accelerated use of the Internet has also enabled a dramatic rise in criminal activity that exploits this inter- connectivity for illicit financial gain and other malicious purposes," according to the US GAO