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Knowing The Risks: The E-vil you are up against

July 21, 2008 15:46 by Alex M
Spyware, Malware, Adware. similar in name and yet significantly different; what are they, how do they get into corporate systems? In a series of coming posts, I'll attempt to shed some light on the nefarious e-contaminations hitting corporate networks.

Malware

Malware is short for malicious software. It infiltrates a computer system without the owners/victims consent.

Motivation: The motivation behind malware creators is usually to annoy users, and to cause damage to or document user information for predominantly malicious reasons such as identity theft, fraudulent activity etc. Some examples of malware include but are not constricted to computer viruses, worms and Trojan horses.

Facts: As much malware was created in 2007 as in the previous 20 years altogether. People shouldn’t confuse malware with faulty software, which although is entirely legitimate, may also be flawed or damaged, possibly harming the computer system without actually having any malevolent intention and or exposing your systems to vulnerabilities (i.e. Windows XP)

History: Malware was originally intended for the soul purposes of annoying users, and for the creators to simply “spread their coding wings”; it was at one point, created and spread by individuals who wanted to test their skills and flaunt their abilities to the underground community. Since then, malware creation has evolved into a professional black market money making machine with profit as the main motive.

Spyware

Spyware is the term referred to software that relays the information found on an infected computer (such as account details, passwords, user surfing habits etc.) back to the softwares creator.

Motivation: Spyware gives its creator the power to install additional harmful applications onto the victims system, which can cause the computer to run slow and/or change any number of settings on the computer that compromise a users privacy.

Facts: Spyware gets transferred onto a system through deceptive tactics employed by malicious websites. What appears to be a desirable program to download may have spyware attached to it so that once a user downloads the program, they are oblivious to the spyware that is being downloaded alongside it.
Another method of deception is the use of rogue anti-spyware programs, which act as legitimate anti-spyware programs, but are in actual fact, spyware themselves. These rogue programs use scare tactics to trick the un-informed user into downloading their tainted product.
Spyware often installs keyloggers and backdoors that silently collect information and feed it back to central servers; this information is used by organised crime-rings for identify theft, credit card numbers and various other electronic schemes.

History: Spyware started out much the same way as malware, and is very commonly found on communal computer systems, where some users may not be very tech-savvy.
eg. family computers with young children actively using the internet.

Adware

Adware can be described as any software application which actively advertises a company's goods and services, be it in a relevant, innocent way or by more intrusive and annoying methods.

Motivation: Creators of adware get a small profit from the companies they advertise through their irritating marketing tactic. this profit may be as small as a few cents every time a user clicks on an advertisement, but this adds up to semi-decent amount of profit, given the creator is doing next to nothing for this small income anyway.

Facts: Adware can be harmless like advertising a legitimate and relevant company at the start-up for games (Activision, NVIDIA etc.), but at the moment we are focussing on the underhanded tactics employed by cyber-criminals.

History: adware was once just a simple way for companies to advertise their legitimate goods and services cheaply, but it has since been utilized by cyber-criminals to do more harm than good.

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Welcome!

July 17, 2008 11:12 by Webmaster

Hello and welcome to the OsBTI IT Blog.

We have just started up this blog and we are looking forward to hearing your thoughts on anything and everything IT related.

Feel free to post any news or articles that you deem relevant to our niche, or just voice your opinion on any IT related issues that have recently surfaced on the Web.

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