McAfee, Inc. (NYSE:MFE) recently released the McAfee Threats Report: Fourth Quarter 2010 report, revealing a steady growth of threats to mobile platforms. The number of pieces of new mobile malware in 2010 increased by 46 percent compared with 2009. The report also uncovered 20 million new pieces of malware in 2010, equating to nearly 55,000 new malware threats every day. Of the almost 55 million total pieces of malware McAfee Labs has identified, 36 percent was created in 2010. Concurrently, spam accounted for 80 percent of total e-mail traffic in Q4 2010, the lowest point since the first quarter of 2007.
“Our Q4 Threats Report shows that cyber criminals are keeping tabs on what’s popular, and what will have the biggest impact from the smallest effort,” said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. “In the past few quarters, malware trends have been very similar in different geographies, but in the last quarter we’ve seen a significant shift in various regions, showing that cyber criminals are tapped in to trends worldwide. McAfee Labs also sees the direct correlation between device popularity and cyber-criminal activity, a trend we expect to surge in 2011.”
Click through for Q4 2010 security results from McAfee.
Threats to mobile platforms are not new. However, as more consumers use mobile devices and tablets in their daily lives and at work, cyber criminals have taken note. During the last several years, McAfee Labs has seen a steady growth in the number of threats to mobile devices. Some of the most interesting mobile threats of Q4 2010 were SymbOS/Zitmo.A and Android/Geinimi. SymbOS/Zitmo.A is a trojan which sends SMS messages and forwards incoming SMS messages to the attacker. It also includes functionality to update the C&C (Command and Control) phone number and target phone numbers via SMS. Android/Geinimi, a Trojan inserted into legitimate mobile applications and games for the Android platform, opens a back door and transmits information from the device to a remote location.
With the adoption of so many new mobile platforms, combined with the lack of security awareness and mobile safeguards, McAfee Labs expects cyber criminals to use botnet infections to target mobile devices. In Q4 2010, Cutwail was dethroned as the global leader in botnet activity, with Rustock the most prevalent in many parts of the world, and Bobax closely trailing behind the two.
The onslaught of malware seems to have no end. The top malware threats in Q4 2010 varied by geography, due in part to the trend that threats now tend to match the types of users, habits and events that are specific to a region. Favorites for cyber criminals worldwide this quarter consisted of AutoRun malware (Generic!atr), banking Trojans and downloaders (PWS or Generic.dx), as well as Web-based exploits (StartPage and Exploit-MS04-028).
Spam hitting its lowest levels in years can be attributed to a “transition period,” with several botnets going dormant during a time of year when spam volumes are usually on an upward path. In Q4, McAfee Labs learned that the Bredolab botnet had been closed, along with parts of the Zeus botnet. Around the Christmas holiday, spam from the Rustock, Lethic, and Xarvester botnets all but disappeared. Spam leaders for Q4 where the Bobax and Grum botnets.
As more users access the Internet from an ever-expanding pool of devices — computer, tablet, smartphone or Internet TV — Web-based threats will continue to grow in size and sophistication. In Q4, some of the most active threats included Zeus-Murofet, Conficker and Koobface, with the number of potentially malicious domains growing at a rapid pace. Phishing URLs in the form of the IRS, gift cards, reward accounts, and social networking accounts were also among the most popular. McAfee Labs found that within the top 100 results of the top daily search terms, 51 percent led to malicious sites, and on average each of these poisoned results pages contained more than five malicious links. McAfee Labs expects attacks using the techniques of search-engine abuse and trend abuse to focus more specifically on new types of devices in 2011.
In 2009, McAfee Labs predicted that vulnerabilities in Adobe product would become the clear choice of malware authors and cybercriminals for distribution malware and compromising systems and networks. This prediction has come true. Throughout 2010, malware developers heavily exploited weaknesses in both Flash and PDF technologies. McAfee Labs databases reveal that malicious PDFs targeting Adobe Acrobat topped the number of unique samples by a wide margin, making them the favorite target of client-side exploitation. McAfee Labs is certain that the “Adobe” trend will continue this year, as more mobile devices and non-Microsoft operating systems support various Adobe technologies.
The main hacktivist actor in Q4 2010 was the “Anonymous” activist group. Its members engaged in various cyber demonstrations against copyright protection groups early in the quarter and against WikiLeaks censors and detractors later in the quarter. The boundary between hacktivism and cyber warfare continues to blur.