Symantec: New era of mega-data leaks' has arrived

According to Symantec, a new era of "mega-data leaks' dawned. Cyber ​​attacks are becoming larger and cost tens of millions of dollars in damage.

At the end of 2013, the most damaging cyber attacks occurred in history, according to the annual Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) from Symantec. The report shows a significant change seen in the way cybercriminals operate. Kept criminals rather mainly with fast attacks that had a small profit result, now they take months to prepare that generate a lot of money. Larger data leaks for
"A mega attack produces sometimes the same as 50 smaller attacks," said Tom Welling, Security Expert at Symantec Benelux. "Although the level of attacks continues to rise, more and more criminals have more patience and they wait until they can commit to deliver more money with a major attack."

Netherlands
The report also reveals that cyber criminals often use networks in the Netherlands to commit cyber attacks. If so-called "threat-source country rises Netherlands internationally from place to place 7 4. In the top ten of threat-source countries, only the Netherlands and Russia increased relatively strongly in 2013.

Increase
The number of data breaches in 2013 increased by 62 percent compared with 2012. As a result, more than 552 million online identities exposed to cyber criminals. So Cybercrime remains a real and damaging threat to both consumers and businesses. In the Netherlands, the favorite sector of cybercriminals each attack varies. The telecom industry is the biggest target for spam (77 percent), followed by the financial sector (64 percent). When it comes to malware, it is the largest retail target.

Compared to 2012, targeted attacks increased by 91 percent in 2013. Moreover, the attacks in 2013 lasted on average three times as long. Looking at occupations, personal assistants and PR staff are most attacked, because they are often a prelude to prominent figures such as celebrities or executives of large corporations.

Protect
According to Symantec, there are certain steps that businesses and consumers can take to protect against possible data leaks, targeted attacks, or general spam better.

Tips for Business
Know your data: information should be the focus of protection are not the devices or the data center. Knowing where sensitive information is located and where it is flowing, helps determine the best policy and the best procedures to protect the data.

Organization
Inform employees supervised workers in protecting their information. Give them an insight into the corporate policies and procedures for protecting sensitive data on personal and corporate devices.
Implement proper security infrastructure: strengthen the security infrastructure through prevention practices aimed at data loss, network security, endpoint security, encryption, strong authentication and defensive measures, such as reputation-based technologies.

Tips for consumers
Be smart in the field of security: Choose a strong password and update all your devices with the latest security software.
Pay attention: check bank and credit card statements for irregularities and be careful when responding to unsolicited or unexpected emails. Also be alert for online deals that seem too good to be true, because usually they are just that.
Know with whom you work, make sure you are familiar with the policies of retailers and online services that can retrieve bank or personal information. If this information should be shared, please do so via the official website of the company and not through an email link.

Detailed Report

McAfee: POS malware can be ordered online threats jumped 197% issued report

Sellers offer BlackPOS (“Dump, CC Memory Grabber”) for purchase online.

Online marketplaces for stolen credit card numbers are thriving.

McAfee report released 2013 Q4 mobile platform malware threats jumped 197%

2013 fourth quarter, Target and other well-known retailers, consumer credit card information was leaked events, and McAfee's 2013 Q4 report that the malware used by attackers, is derived from 'cyber crime as a Service' ( Cybercrime-as-a-Service) communities.

In addition, McAfee also updated the malware data mobile platform - the company's called "Malware Zoo". Compared to last year, the situation did not diminish - soared 197%.

As ever (probably) the largest credit card information leak case together, despite its place in the point of sale POS system, but the company for the conclusion of the event, but it paints a depressing picture.

Vincent Weafer (McAfee Labs), senior vice president of McAfee Labs wrote: "What is more worrying is that the malicious software industry is how their customer service."

After buying a ready-made version of the POS network malware (Target's case, this stock is called BlackPOS), hackers also specifically modified it for their own use.

The McAfee After working with different organizations to extract and identify different data (domain name and user accounts, etc.), and returns the data to the hacker's code (as shown below).

The Target malware included hardcoded scripts to steal domain names, user accounts, and other data

Vincent Weafer added: "They even had a ready-made, highly efficient black market to sell stolen credit card information, and even includes an anonymous virtual currency payment system based POS raw materials, manufacturing, marketing, trading support - nothing is there. "

McAfee expects these stolen credit card data (reported 40 million), in Lampeduza Republic and other black market price, between one million to four million U.S. dollars.

McAfee's report, there are many noteworthy:

For example, malicious binary signature rise. McAfee said the distribution of content on the network, the "ambiguous" (dubious) more and more. CA certificate malware abuse cases are also quite common.

2013 fourth quarter, the company found that the more than 2.3 million malicious binaries signed, an increase of 52% over the third quarter. The amount of 2013 year was 5.7 million, which is already three times in 2012 and more.

McAfee wrote: "This threat is not only the proliferation of faster, are becoming increasingly complex."

As for the mobile platform, the number of malicious software also continues to climb. Total 2013 collected has reached 2.47 million, of which there are 744000 in the fourth quarter - an increase of 197 percent from a year ago.

McAfee did not pick out a platform, but given Android is already the world's most popular smartphone platform, these words are clearly not self evident.

McAfee noted that malware mobile platform, its mode of transmission and computer platforms roughly the same - be infected through the application, or web browsing. 2013, when the company tracked 200 new malware samples per minute.

Distribution, North America still "tops the list." Although the "hacker hotbed" "is on the rise in other countries and regions," but suspicious content and spam links to the United States is still "excellent."

Overall, the browser is still the most common malicious hacker attacks approaches.

This script sent credit card data to the Target attackers.

MtGox2014 Zip Contains One Malware: TibanneBackOffice.exe
MD5:c4e99fdcd40bee6eb6ce85167969348d
Virus Total Link
Detail from McAfee Report is available: Here