The Malware Threat Landscape
Nearly one in four Internet-connected PC is now infected with stealthy malware with 'remote control' capability. 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.
The FBI estimated cybercrime cost U.S. businesses $67.2 billion in 2005 alone. These malware-infected PC's (bots) are used for:
- 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
These networks of malware-infected "robot" machines are the underlying infrastructure enabling an epidemic of Internet cybercrime.
"...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