The earliest worms and viruses were created for geeky fun and did little harm - oh, how times have changed. Here are 20 worms, viruses and botnets that show the evolution of malware, from Creeper to Flame.
05 Nov | View galleries
Banking Trojans were a more common email payload in the first quarter of this year than ransomware, according to new figures that reflect a tactical shift that has security experts warning of a resurgence of financial cybercrime.
David Braue | 04 Jun | Read more
Australian organisations are being hit by over 450 distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks every day and fully a quarter of them are coming from domestic sources, analysts have warned as figures show DDoS attacks making a resurgence after nearly a year of decline.
David Braue | 28 Sep | Read more
In a new type of DDoS attack, skilled bad actors use pulse wave DDoS assaults to exploit weaknesses in appliance-first hybrid mitigation solutions and pin down multiple targets.
As Joomla websites were being attacked en masse using recently patched exploits and owners of Belkin WeMo devices were advised to update before their devices were exploited in global zombie botnets, some were wondering whether developers will ever get better at writing secure code.
David Braue | 08 Nov | Read more
Empowered by big-data analysis, security researchers are finding new ways to pinpoint the sources of botnets, login account hacking and fraud exploits that will allow businesses to proactively evaluate and manage their exposure to financial and other risks.
David Braue | 15 Jul | Read more
Put simply, cybercrime, especially financial malware, has the potential to be quite the lucrative affair. That's only because the bad guys have the tools to make their work quick and easy, though. Cripple the automated processes presented by certain malware platforms, and suddenly the threats -- and the losses --aren't quite so serious.
Grant Hatchimonji | 20 Aug | Read more
As fireworks boomed on the Fourth of July, thousands of compromised computers attacked U.S. government Web sites. A botnet of more than 200,000 computers, infected with a strain of 2004's MyDoom virus, attempted to deny legitimate access to sites such as those of the Federal Trade Commission and the White House. The assault was a bold reminder that botnets continue to be a massive problem.
Robert Vamosi | 25 Aug | Read more
Research from security vendor Finjan Inc. suggests enterprise IT shops are losing the war against those who would hijack company computers for botnets. Almost half the victims appear to be in the U.S. -- most using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser.
Bill Brenner | 05 May | Read more
The perpetual proliferation of botnets is hardly surprising when one considers just how easy it is for the bad guys to hijack computers without tipping off the users.<br/>
Bill Brenner | 16 Apr | Read more
The ability of malware writers to consistently stay ahead of those seeking to stop them has been a constant factor in the security industry over the past several years.
Jaikumar Vijayan | 20 Oct | Read more
This paper follows the monitoring and analysis of malicious cyber threats using research, digital forensics and post event analysis to build a global view of the threats, vulnerabilities and trends. •Malicious actors are now switching tactics to build, deploy and conceal powerful botnets •DDoS attack activity and sizes have remained elevated throughout the first half of 2014 •Malicious actors were able to generate large attack sizes by employing reflection and amplification techniques