Gangs of professional cyber criminals may be targeting a computer near you. That is just one of the messages contained in this week’s year-end wrap-up from F-Secure, the IT security specialists. F-Secure says their virus lab detected more than 500,000 pieces of malicious code this year, up from 250,000 last year.
But the trade in viruses, trojan horses and other sneaky programmes isn’t just getting bigger - it’s also getting more sinister as gangs of organised computer criminals have come to dominate the trade in viruses, worms, and other computer bugs. As F-Secure writes:
There was a great deal of volume seen during 2007. Malware authors are producing variants in bulk. Genuine innovation appears to be on the decline and is currently being replaced with volume and mass-produced kit malware. But while new techniques weren’t developed ??? the existing techniques were refined and adapted for much greater effectiveness. There are some very dangerous faces in the big crowd.
Like their cousins, the spammers, this new breed of cyber-criminal is drawn not so much to the technical challenges of writing malware, but to the financial returns. Hence their newfound interest in Apple, whose growing market share this year has made it a target of professional hackers. With the launch of Apple’s iPhone, one can only expect the shenanigans to continue as hackers look for ways to target it and other internet-enabled mobile phones.
All this is set to add up to a lot more work for the virus researchers whose job is to keep on top of the hackers’ latest exploits. "The situation is getting worse for sure," says Patrik Runald, an F-Secure researcher. "I see the next couple of years being a test of endurance."
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