Finjan Discovers a Network of 1.9 Million Malware-Infected Computers Controlled by Cybercriminals - Corporate and Government Computers are Included

/PRNewswire/ -- Finjan Inc., a leader in secure web gateway products and the provider of unified web security solutions for the enterprise market, today announced that Finjan's Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC) has discovered a network of 1.9 million malware-infected computers. Corporate, government and consumer computers around the world were infected by the malware.

This discovery is part of a research conducted by MCRC when investigating command and control servers operated by cybercriminals. The cybercrime server has been in use since February 2009, is hosted in the Ukraine and is controlled by a cybergang of 6 people. These cybercriminals established a vast affiliation network across the Web to successfully distribute and operate their malware install-base. They compromised computers in 77 government-owned domains (.gov) from the US, UK and various other countries.

The malware is remotely controlled by the cybercriminals, enabling them to instruct the malware to execute almost any command on the end-user computer as they see fit, such as: reading emails, copying files, recording keystrokes, sending spam, making screenshots, etc.

Since the discovery of its findings, Finjan has provided US and UK law enforcement with information about the server. Finjan has also contacted affected corporate and government agencies to let them know that they were part of the infected computer names.

"As predicted by Finjan at the end of last year, cybercriminals keep on looking for improved methods to distribute their malware and Trojans are winning the race (http://www.finjan.com/Content.aspx?id=827#SecurityTrendsReport). The sophistication of the malware and the staggering amount of infected computers proves that cybergangs are raising the bar," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO of Finjan. "As big money drives today's cybercrime activities, organizations and corporations need to protect their valuable data to prevent theft by these kind of sophisticated cyberattacks."

The research also revealed that the malware is installed on computers when visiting compromised websites serving malicious code. Information found by MCRC on the command and control server includes the IP addresses of the infected computers as well as the computers' name inside corporate and government networks that are running the malware.

The global spread of infected computers in percentages is as follows:

- US: 45%

- UK: 6%

- Canada: 4%

- Germany: 4%

- France: 3%

- Other: 38%

The malware is infecting computers running the Windows XP operating
system and using the following Web browsers:

- Internet Explorer - 78%

- Firefox - 15%

- Opera - 3%

- Safari - 1%

- Other - 3%



As recommended by leading analysts, a unified Web security solution is the preferred solution for corporate and government agencies against today's cyber attacks. Finjan's Unified Secure Web Gateway (http://www.finjan.com/Content.aspx?id=190) product combines multi-layered Web security, utilizing real-time content inspection technologies, with data leakage prevention (DLP) solutions. Finjan's product also provides Web 2.0, productivity, liability and bandwidth control via URL categorization, content caching and applications control technologies on one dedicated appliance. This enables companies and governmental agencies alike to enjoy optimal multi-layered protection in real-time, with lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and higher Return on Investment (ROI).

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page

FBI Warns of New Vishing Attacks Targeting Private Branch Exchange (PBX) Systems

The FBI has identified a new technique used to conduct vishing attacks where hackers exploit a known security vulnerability in Asterisk software. Asterisk is free and widely used software developed to integrate Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) digital Internet voice calling services; however, early versions of the Asterisk software are known to have a vulnerability. The vulnerability can be exploited by cyber criminals to use the system as an auto dialer, generating thousands of vishing telephone calls to consumers within one hour.

Digium, the original creator and primary developer of Asterisk, released a Security Advisory, AST-2008-003, in March 2008, which contains the information necessary for users to configure a system, patch the software, or upgrade the software to protect against this vulnerability.

If a consumer falls victim to this exploit, their personally identifiable information (PII) will be compromised. To prevent further loss of consumers’ PII and to reduce the spread of this new technique, it is imperative that businesses using Asterisk upgrade their software to a version that has had the vulnerability fixed.

Further, consumers should not release personal information in response to unsolicited telephone calls. Providing your PII will compromise your identity.

“As with all types of scams, whether by computer, phone, or mail, using common sense can protect you,” said Special Agent Richard Kolko, Chief, National Press Office, Washington, D.C.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page

National Cyber Security Survey Finds Americans More Wary of Cyber Crime

PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More and more Americans are conducting online banking, stock trading and health management, but nearly 60 percent of Americans say that the risks of identity theft have changed their online behaviors, according to a recent survey conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).

More than 40 percent of Americans said that they only visit Web sites that they are familiar with and 20 percent said that they have stopped or limited their online purchases. The change in behaviors is perhaps not so surprising when you consider that, of those surveyed, 22 percent claimed they had their identity misused to compromise a bank account, steal a credit card number or take out an unauthorized loan.

More than 73 percent of those surveyed said they use the Internet to bank, trade stocks or review personal medical information so the violation of trust that an online security breach can cause is massive. When Americans were asked if having their bank account or credit card account robbed of $5,000 was worse than having their home broken into and robbed of $5,000, 51% said online fraud was worse. Only 37% said the home break-in was worse and 12% were not sure.

"The convenience of conducting part of our lives online has transformed the way we live, but it's not without risk," said Michael Kaiser, executive director of the NCSA. "Only visiting Web sites that you trust is one aspect of good online security. In addition, home users should be vigilant about keeping their anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall up-to-date and use unique passwords that contain numbers, letters and symbols. These tools combined with good online behavior equal good cyber security."

The survey also found that:

-- 53 percent of Americans use the same online password for multiple
accounts.
-- 68 percent surveyed store more than a quarter of their photographs
digitally.
-- 63 percent for respondents said that they back up sensitive
information from their computers


For the survey, NCSA commissioned a Zogby online poll of more than 3,000 Americans. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 1.6%.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page