Top 10 spyware tricks of 2005
You can tell we’re in the last 10-12 days of the year when we start seeing all sorts of year end retrospectives, year’s in review, countdowns of the top ___ of ___year ending___. Well, spyware has seen a banner year in many respects and Suzi at Spyware Confidential has a rundown of the top 10 tricks used in 2005.
Here’s a brief highlight…
10. Spyware spread through Windows Media files
9. Adware companies hide their dirty work using rootkit technology
8. Internet Explorer infected through Firefox
7. Direct Revenue unleashed Aurora
6. Spam bots, keyloggers, kiddie porn connect with major adware companies
5. Spazbox domain installs massive spyware/adware – using IRC
4. Anti-spyware spread by spyware and trojans
3. Direct Revenue adware distributed through BitTorrent
2. AIM worm carries backdoor, rootkit and adware, found to be powered by world wide bot net with ties to the Middle East.
1. Sony BMG infects users with DRM rootkit
What’s distressing is that I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of these tricks… In fact given the traction that some of the rogues have made with #4 above… that may be a favored vector this coming year. I’m sure that we’ll also see other, new tactics.
Earlier this afternoon I did some work for someone that had just recently got a new DSL connection. (And Symantec Internet Security 2006). She had got tons of messenger popup spam. (LAN connection was firewalled, but the PPPoE wasn’t..(?)) Anyway, she was confused about why Symantec would be popping up asking her to download win-fix for $49… So even some of the old vectors are still common. Fortunately she didn’t bite… (and now everything is firewalled and several services are disabled.