India third most online banking malware affected country: Trend Micro-Times of India
COIMBATORE: India is the third most affected country by online banking malware, according to a Trend Micro Q1, 2014 threat roundup. India slowly rose to the top 3 due to a spike in the number of online bankers in the country, which could be attributed to a vastly improved banking industry.
"The number of online bankers in the India has improved the overall industry but has resulted in significant rise in malicious activities," said Dhanya Thakkar, managing director, Trend Micro (India & SEA). "The mobile banking transaction volume grew along with the number of online money transfers-a-top-ranking secondary means of making inward remittances in India in Q1, 2014," he said.
Online banking malware creators updated their portfolios yet again with the addition of new routines to their usual weapons of choice, Trend Micro, a leading player in internet content security software, has said.
"Case in point: We found a ZeuS/ZBOT variant that had a 64-bit version, used Tor to hide C&C communications, and evaded anti-malware detection," it stated. "We also saw a ZeuS/ZBOT spam attachment run only on a specific date but crashed on any other."
Though they sported new routines, online banking malware retained their core. They continued to be widespread in the same countries -- the US (23%), Japan (10%), and India (9%) -- and grow in number amid the steady rise of the number of internet users and online transactions. In fact, the online banking malware volume showed a 3% increase to 116,000 this quarter from 113,000 in the first quarter of 2013.
Since law enforcement activities against online theft are slowly being ramped up, cyber criminals are starting to add more layers to ensure anonymity in order to protect their identities and avoid getting arrested.
"Using Tor as a C&C channel allowed them a little more anonymity and gave them some degree of additional resilience against security software detection and takedown," Trend Micro said
Link times of India
No comments:
Post a Comment