Cybercriminals Using Marketing-like Approach To Lure Victims
Hardwarezone (13 may 2011)

Kuala Lumpur' Malaysia – Microsoft Corporation has just released its Security Intelligence Report (Volume 10) that highlights the fact that cybercriminals are utilizing a 'marketing-like' approach and deception tactics to steal money from their victims.

Attackers continue to incorporate social lures that appear to be legitimate marketing campaigns and product promotions. Six of the top 10 most prevalent malware families in the second half of 2010 fall into these categories of attack methods. Criminals using these malware families make money through tricking users with pay-per-click schemes' false advertisements or fake security software for sale. Additionally' the report highlights an increase of over 1'200 percent in phishing using social networking as the lure' as these venues have become lucrative hot beds for criminal activity.

According to the report' phishing using social networking as the lure increased from a low of 8.3 percent of all phishing in January to a high of 84.5 percent in December 2010. The popularity of social networking sites has created new opportunities for cybercriminals to not only lure unsuspecting users' but also friends' colleagues and family through impersonation. These methods add to an existing list of social engineering techniques' such as financial and product promotions through email and instant messenger' to extort money or trick users into downloading malicious content.

Additionally' rogue security software or scareware has quickly become one of the most common ways for cybercriminals across the globe to acquire money and private information from unassuming computer users. Rogue security software families' including the most prevalent' Win32/FakeSpypro' appear similar to legitimate security software providing a false sense of protection' and if trusted and clicked by the user' downloads itself and compromises systems. In 2010' Microsoft protected nearly 19 million systems from rogue security software. The top five rogue security software families were responsible for 70 percent or approximately 13 million of those detections.

In order to combat these threats' Microsoft suggests the following best practices for securing networks' software and devices:

Protect Your PC: Online safety guidance to protect information when surfing online and accessing the many cloud services available

Protect Your Organization: Leverage best practices for securing networks' software and customers by implementing information security policies' promoting awareness' defending against malware and securing network infrastructure

Get The Latest Software: For Microsoft customers' newer software' like Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9 offer the most up-to-date protection to help keep information safe

For more information' please visit www.microsoft.com/sir.