Posted on 12/29/2004 7:11:33 PM PST by Happy2BMe
The last 12 months have seen a dramatic growth in almost every security threat that plague Windows PCs.
The count of known viruses broke the 100,000 barrier and the number of new viruses grew by more than 50%.
Similarly phishing attempts, in which conmen try to trick people into handing over confidential data, are recording growth rates of more than 30% and attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Also on the increase are the number of networks of remotely controlled computers, called bot nets, used by malicious hackers and conmen to carry out many different cyber crimes.
Teenage kicks
One of the biggest changes of 2004 was the waning influence of the boy hackers keen to make a name by writing a fast-spreading virus, said Kevin Hogan, senior manager in Symantec's security response group.
Although teenage virus writers will still play around with malicious code, said Mr Hogan, 2004 saw a significant rise in criminal use of malicious programs.
The financial incentives were driving criminal use of technology, he said.
His comment was echoed by Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant from anti-virus firm Sophos.
Mr Cluley said: "When the commercial world gets involved, things really get nasty. Virus writers and hackers will be looking to make a tidy sum."
Source: Sophos
TOP VIRUSES OF 2004
1) Netsky-P
2) Zafi-B
3) Sasser
4) Netsky-B
5) Netsky-D
6) Netsky-Z
7) MyDoom-A
8) Sober-I
9) Netsky-C
10) Bagle-AA
In particular, phishing attacks, which typically use fake versions of bank websites to grab login details of customers, boomed during 2004.
Web portal Lycos Europe reported a 500% increase in the number of phishing e-mail messages it was catching.
The Anti-Phishing Working group reported that the number of phishing attacks against new targets was growing at a rate of 30% or more per month.
Those who fall victim to these attacks can find that their bank account has been cleaned out or that their good name has been ruined by someone stealing their identity.
This change in the ranks of virus writers could mean the end of the mass-mailing virus which attempts to spread by tricking people into opening infected attachments on e-mail messages.
"They are not an efficient way of spreading viruses," said Mr Hogan.
"They are very noisy and they are not technically challenging."
The opening months of 2004 did see the appearance of the Netsky, Bagle and MyDoom mass mailers, but since then more surreptitious viruses, or worms, have dominated.
Remote control
Mr Hogan said worm writers were more interested in recruiting PCs to take part in "bot nets" that can be used to send out spam or to mount attacks on websites.
About 70% of all e-mail messages are now junk mail
In September Symantec released statistics which showed that the numbers of active "bot computers" rose from 2,000 to 30,000 per day.
Thanks to these "bot nets", spam continued to be a problem in 2004. Anti-spam firms report that, in many cases, legitimate e-mail has shrunk to less than 30% of messages.
Part of the reason that these "bot nets" have become so prevalent, he said, was due to a big change in the way that many viruses were created.
In the past many viruses, such as Netsky, have been the work of an individual or group.
By contrast, said Mr Hogan, the code for viruses such as Gaobot, Spybot and Randex were commonly held and many groups work on them to produce new variants at the same time.
The result is that now there are more than 3,000 variations of the Spybot worm.
"That's unprecedented," said Mr Hogan. "What makes it difficult is that they are all co-existing with each other and do not exist in an easy to understand chronology."
Moving target
The emergence of the first proper virus for mobile phones was also seen in 2004.
Phishing attacks are becoming popular among net savvy criminals
In the past, threats to smart phones have been largely theoretical because the viruses created to cripple phones existed only in the laboratory rather than the wild.
In June, the Cabir virus was discovered that can hop from phone to phone using Bluetooth short-range radio technology.
Also released this year was the Mosquito game for Symbian phones which surreptitiously sends messages to premium rate numbers, and in November the Skulls Trojan came to light which can cripple phones.
On the positive side, Finnish security firm F-Secure said that 2004 was the best-ever year for the capture, arrest and sentencing of virus writers and criminally-minded hackers.
In total, eight virus writers were arrested and some members of the so-called 29A virus writing group were sentenced.
One high-profile arrest was that of German teenager Sven Jaschen who confessed to be behind the Netsky and Sasser virus families.
Also shut down were the Carderplanet and Shadowcrew websites that were used to trade stolen credit card numbers.
________________________________
Mr Hogan said worm writers were more interested in recruiting PCs to take part in "bot nets" that can be used to send out spam or to mount attacks on websites.
In total, eight virus writers were arrested
Are we impressed yet?
Everyone should sit down and write a THANK YOU letter to Bill Gates for his garbage products.
I din't do it! :^O:^)
And yet at present time there are 60 viruses that can impact Mac's, and none of them will affect OS X.
100,000 or zero, tough choice.
I did exactly that when I traded my Dell laptop for a PowerBook and my Dell PC for an iMac.
I like Linux myself, but the two are related on a core level. Mac and Linux.
Does anyone know the name of the virus or whatever it is that will:
Shutdown Outlook express using the MSOERES.DLL file
while denying acess to "add or remove programs"
while shutting down Windows Media Player
while stopping all downloads while
screwing up more things that I can think of right now?
If you do I'll pay good money for the answer.
I see a market for someone who can take Linux to the next level. I see The Linspire people as doing a good deal towards offering alternatives, but there could be more done. I would like to make an offer. Everyone who owns a computer could send me $10. I would then take that money and create a brand new operating system with internet access for free, email client, and word processor, spreadsheet, and database capabitlities. All for the cost of a harddrive (about $200). You would recieve lifetime support, and lifetime upgrades to your software. You could also create low cost task specific systems. I.E. gaming systems, graphics systems, audio file creation systems, etc. etc. These systems could come with preinstalled software that automatically starts at boot time.
A good anti-virus program as well as one that detects spyware, a firewall and strong browser security settings are at least half the battle. And don't open e-mail attachments, I did a few years back and will never make that mistake again.
None of them effect the PlayStation or Game Cube OSes either. I guess its nice to have a toy computer like a Mac.
I'll let you decide if you need the name of the virus to fix the problem.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Outlook+express++MSOERES.DLL++virus+named&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=
mark
Everyone should sit down and write a THANK YOU letter to Bill Gates for his garbage products.
Oh stop it already, why does everyone think it's Bill Gates personal responsibility to secure their private property?At the moment I currently have 5, knock on wood virus free PCs running Windows with free readily available security software.If someone steals or vandalizes your car is it the automaker's fault?
The only thing stopping Linux from destroying Windows in the area of desktop home users is hardware support.
A simpler install would be helpfull,I have the knoppix CD and it easily boots and runs from a CD but their HD install is quite another story.
I searched with google and could find no specific virus to blame. What might work in WindowsXP is to download a fresh (uncorrupted) version of this msoeres.dll from http://www.dlldump.com/download-dll-files.php/dllfiles/M/msoeres.dll/download.html and insert it in the two places where it's supposed to be----->
C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache
and
C:\Program Files\Outlook Express
Why not kill off all viruses in your system? Then repair Outlook Express via windows repair on your XP disc and re-installing service packs SP2 or SP1 with updates. If you have broadband you can download these service packs all at once. Download is about 130mb.SP2 is more.
In XP repair looks pretty easy and you will be updating it at the same time. As a general rule, make sure OE is updated to the max with available patches
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q318378
Actually I think XP SP2 went a little too far in the handholding. All it takes to keep the computer secure is to make use of the tools available, many of them free and a little common sense.
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