Where have the worms and viruses gone?—new trends in malware

Abstract

They are still A- bot There are less destructive viruses around – there is no doubt about it. Where are the Blasters and Slammers? Dr Gene Schultz believes that they have been reborn as bots. Malware writers are shifting their focus from unleashing massive, destructive viruses to harvesting thousands of bots. Botnets are stealth and sneaky, trying to avoid detection – while old school viruses like Blaster were loud and ubiquitous. Bots work quietly while the viruses of old wreaked unmissable havoc across thousands of computers internationally. And some anti-virus tools are sometimes useless in recognising botnets. Botnets are much more widespread than people know – the stealth way in which they operate makes them hard to detect. The switch from viruses and worms is likely due to the variety of ways that bots can make money for zombie masters. Botnets can be sold, used to send spam, for Dos attacks and extortion. Schultz also explores other reasons for why there are less mass worms as follows: • More companies use anti-virus software. • There are fewer vulnerabilities for viruses to exploit. • Boredom has demotivated virus and worm writers. • Worm and virus writers are scared of the repercussions. • Worms and viruses target more niche systems were mass spreading is impossible. There is a new trend in malware and organizations have to adapt to fight it. Although many new worms and viruses surface every week, they are becoming less widespread than those in previous years. In contrast, bots and botnets are becoming more prolific and troublesome; botnets consisting of hundreds of thousands of bots or even more are not uncommon. Bot writers and botnet operators have numerous motives for engaging in their sordid activity, but the desire to make money has become by far the chief motivator. Meanwhile, the nature of current worms and viruses is also changing considerably—a growing number of them uses instant messaging (IM) to replicate, and worms and viruses that target handheld computing devices are also becoming more prevalent. Bots and botnets pose very elevated levels of risk, risk that needs to be controlled through a variety of security countermeasures.