Symantec Corp releases ISTR Volume XIII

Specific to India, Symantec has observed that malicious activity in the form of worms, viruses and Trojans is on the rise. More than 65 percent of malicious attacks in India were through worms as compared to the global average of 22 percent. This is a clear indication that basic security patch updates are not being installed by users. Malicious code propagation vectors like file sharing/executables were behind the high proliferation of viruses in India. Symantec also observed that rampant software piracy in India aided the spread of malware by the file sharing/executables mechanism.

Particularly of concern to Indian enterprises and consumers were the increasing botnet activities in India. India had 38,502 bot-infected computers and more than 60 command and control servers, a 50 percent increase from the last reporting period.  A majority of bot-infected computers were tracked in Mumbai (56 percent), Chennai (16 percent) and New Delhi (14 percent). The increase in botnet activities have led to a high number of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDOS) on Indian enterprises.

Phishing was another major cause of concern in the Indian security threat landscape. In the last six months of 2007, Symantec observed 345 unique phishing URLs with IP addresses hosted in India. Symantec also observed more than 400 unique phishing attacks on reputable Indian banks. Out of these, some of the attacks involved the use of compromised '.gov' servers to launch phishing attacks on other brands.

According to the report, majority of phished Web sites that were detected globally during this reporting period spoofed social networking sites. This is a sign of caution for India too, since according to a recent industry report nearly 5-6 million Indians are actively involved in social networking and spend approximately 25-75 percent of their time online in social networking activities. They can become easy preys to 'abuse of trust' tactics.  According to the Symantec report 

Ø       Social networking sites are easy for criminals to spoof and because social networking pages are generally trusted by users, phishing attacks mimicking them may be more successful.

Ø       Profiles on social networking sites often contain a significant amount of personal information about the user.

Ø       Spoofed social networking pages can include links to false download that require users to enter confidential information such as authentication information or credit card information that can subsequently be used for fraudulent purposes.

The report also found that attackers are seeking confidential end-user information that can be fraudulently used for financial gain and are less focused on the computer or device containing the information.  In the last six months of 2007, 68 percent of the most prevalent malicious threats reported to Symantec attempt to compromise confidential information.

Finally, attackers are leveraging a maturing underground economy to buy, sell and trade stolen information. This economy is now characterized by a number of traits common in traditional economies.  For example, market forces of supply and demand have a direct impact on pricing.  Credit card information, which has become plentiful in this environment, accounted for 13 percent of all advertised goods - down from 22 percent in the previous period and sold for as low as $0.40.  The price of a credit card in this underground market is determined by factors such as the location of the issuing bank.  Credit cards from the European Union, for example, cost more than those from the United States; this is most likely due to the smaller supply of cards circulating in the E.U which makes the card more valuable to a criminal. Bank account credentials have become the most frequently advertised item making up 22 percent of all goods and selling for as little as $10.   

"The sale of malicious services, outsourcing of resources such as phishing hosts and spambots, and bulk pricing are signs of a robust economy. These factors in the underground economy indicate that "business is booming," said Vishal Dhupar, managing director, Symantec India.  "So lucrative is the underground economy that organizations and individuals operating within it appear willing and able to change their business models or adopt new ones in response to changes in the threat landscape."

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