Kaspersky: .NET Weaponry Cyber Criminal

Microsoft has with the launch of the .NET framework in 2002 cyber criminals unwittingly provide an unimaginable arsenal, say two experts of the Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab. According to Santiago Pontiroli and Roberto Martinez has Microsoft .NET software development changed radically, but not just for well-intentioned programmers.

Script kiddies could suddenly clicks their own malware together and experienced malware authors now had access to various forums explaining writing new malicious code. All of them with the purpose of detection by anti-virus software to avoid as long as possible. The .NET frameworks not only offered an extensive library of built-in functions, but also a development environment that supported all kinds of programming languages, including C # and Visual Basic .NET.

The .NET framework has become the de facto standard for software development on Windows, according Pontiroli and Martinez. In addition was added in 2006 to the powerful PowerShell scripting framework. Through the interaction between the programming languages ​​that .NET supports and scripting capabilities of PowerShell provides the system administrators and programmers an easy way to not only Windows, but to interact with almost all Microsoft software.

According to the two experts provide the ready-to-use functionality make the .NET and PowerShell is a deadly combination in the hands of cyber criminals. Something that is also reflected in the amount of .NET malware that has risen sharply in recent years. According to Kaspersky Lab goes between 2009 and 2015 for an increase of 7000%, and tens of millions of copies. If, in the type of malware looks than it appears to be mainly toolbars and Trojans.

Future

Although the malware is now focusing only on Windows this may change in the future. The expert does not exclude that in the short term there is a "cross-platform" infection will show, for example through alternative frameworks such as the Mono Project, an open source implementation of .NET and include several Android users can be attacked.