{"id":25818,"date":"2012-11-15T17:17:33","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T07:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/power-up.space\/?p=25818"},"modified":"2012-11-15T17:17:33","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T07:17:33","slug":"mcafee-threats-report-shows-global-expansion-of-cybercrime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/?p=25818","title":{"rendered":"McAfee Threats Report Shows Global Expansion of Cybercrime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><em>Report Reveals Further Details of \u201cOperation High Roller,\u201d Explores Evolution of Ransomware, Shows Malware Topping 100 Million Samples, and Finds Database Breaches at All-Time High<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>SANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2013 Nov. 14, 2012 <\/strong>\u2013 McAfee today released the <a href=\"http:\/\/auc.tractionplatform.com\/id=4880,18224249,23197715,332676,1?erl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcafee.com%2Fus%2Fresources%2Freports%2Frp-quarterly-threat-q3-2012.pdf\">McAfee Threats Report: Third Quarter 2012<\/a>, which explores techniques in cybercrime as well as the global evolution of cyber exploits.\u00a0 The latest report uncovers new details of \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/auc.tractionplatform.com\/id=4880,18224249,23197715,300025,1?erl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcafee.com%2Fus%2Fresources%2Freports%2Frp-operation-high-roller.pdf\">Operation High Roller<\/a>,\u201d tracks that mobile malware almost doubled the previous quarter\u2019s total, and reveals an all-time high in database breaches. McAfee Labs also saw jumps in some categories of malware, including ransomware and signed binaries. Rootkits and Mac malware continue to rise, while password-stealing Trojans and AutoRun malware also trended strongly upward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCybercrime exhibits few signs of slowing down,\u201d said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. \u201cThough we tend to highlight the numbers, the fact is that we continue to see increased sophistication of attacks. Cybercrime, hacktivism, and cyberwarfare are in a continual state of evolution.\u00a0 Everyone from governments to large enterprises, small business and home users are facing a wider range of digital threats from these forces, as they gain more actionable intelligence on their victims, and leverage the newest attack platforms and exploits tools to launch their campaigns. We all need to equip ourselves with basic situation awareness to our online risks and how best to prevent and combat these threats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each quarter, the McAfee Labs team of 500 multidisciplinary researchers in 30 countries follows the complete range of threats in real time, identifying application vulnerabilities, analysing and correlating risks, and enabling instant remediation to protect enterprises and the public.\u00a0 This quarter, McAfee Labs identified the following trends:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Financial Fraud Ring Extends Worldwide Reach<\/strong>: Online financial fraud \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 attacks have spread worldwide in Q3. New research indicates that Operation \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 High Roller, a financial fraud ring identified earlier this year by McAfee \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Labs and Guardian Analytics, has now spread outside Europe, including to \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the United States and Colombia. Cybercriminals set up an automated \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 transfer system (ATS) that was used to attack European financial \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 institutions, and set out to target a major U.S. multinational financial \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 institution.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ransomware Continues to Evolve:<\/strong>\u00a0 In Q3, the number \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of unique samples of ransomware, which extorts money from its victims, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 grew by another 43 per cent, making it one of the fastest-growing areas of \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cybercrime. Devices are infected via links in email and social networks, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 drive-by downloads, and pay-per-install methods. Most malware typically \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 accuses the user of visiting illegal websites, locks the computer, and \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 then demands a payment to unlock the device. Although victims can pay, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 they are not guaranteed complete system restores.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Malware \u201cZoo\u201d Tops 100 Million<\/strong>: While growth in \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 malware slowed slightly this quarter, the overall number in the malware \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201czoo\u201d still topped 100 million samples, as predicted. Mobile malware \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 almost doubled the previous quarter\u2019s total, while the Android platform \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 remains the largest target. McAfee Labs now sees an average of 100,000 new \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 malware samples per day. Since January, signed malware has doubled, which \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 has implications for global trust infrastructure.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Database Breaches at an All-Time High<\/strong>: The total number of \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 data breaches in 2012 has already surpassed the figure for the entire 2011 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 calendar year; this year, close to 100 new database-related \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 vulnerabilities have been disclosed or silently patched by developers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stealth Malware Shows Steady Growth:<\/strong> Showing steady growth \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in Q3, this type of stealth malware is known as one of the \u201cnastiest\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 classifications because they are designed to evade detection.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Web Threats Increase 20 per cent<\/strong>: Among web and messaging \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 threats, we saw a 20 per cent increase this quarter in suspicious URLs, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 with a vast number of these URLs hosting malware. Almost 64 per cent of \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 these newly discovered suspect URLs are mainly located in North America.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To learn more about the rise in malware in the full copy of the McAfee Threats Report, Third Quarter 2012, please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/auc.tractionplatform.com\/id=4880,18224249,23197715,332676,1?erl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcafee.com%2Fus%2Fresources%2Freports%2Frp-quarterly-threat-q3-2012.pdf\">http:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/us\/resources\/reports\/rp-quarterly-threat-q3-2012.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Report Reveals Further Details of \u201cOperation High Roller,\u201d Explores Evolution of Ransomware, Shows Malware Topping 100 Million Samples, and Finds Database Breaches at All-Time High SANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2013 Nov. 14, 2012 \u2013 McAfee today released the McAfee Threats Report: Third Quarter 2012, which explores techniques in cybercrime as well as the global evolution of<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/?p=25818\">Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25821,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25818\/revisions\/25821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}