2009 Security threat report: Overview

On 2 November 1988 a 22-year old Cornell University student called Robert Morris released an internet worm capable of exploiting vulnerabilities in the UNIX operating system. It is estimated that it infected 10 percent of the internet. Twenty years on, the scale of the malware problem
has grown astronomically. Today’s internet attacks are organized and designed to steal information and resources from consumers and corporations. Although there have been
instances of attacks driven by politics and religion, the main motivation is financial.

The web is now the primary route by which cybercriminals infect computers, mainly due to the fact that increasing numbers of organizations have secured their email gateways. As a consequence, cybercriminals are planting malicious code on innocent websites. This code then simply lies in wait and silently infects visiting computers.

The scale of this global criminal operation has reached such proportions that Sophos discovers one new infected webpage every 4.5 seconds – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In addition, SophosLabs, our global network of threat analysis centers, is sent some 20,000 new samples of
suspect code every single day.

2008 proved that malware is more than just a Microsoft problem. Although the sheer number of Windows threats far outweighs attacks against any other platform, cybercriminals are turning their attention to other operating systems such as Apple Macintosh, and vulnerable crossplatform
software. This seems likely to continue in 2009, with the increasing popularity of portable devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, Google Android phone and ultramobile netbooks.

It remains paramount that organizations defend themselves at all levels of their business, not just at the email and web gateways. Networks, desktops, laptops and mobile devices must be comprehensively secured to defend against the myriad threats posed by the criminal underground.

2008 at a glance

Biggest malware threats – SQL injection attacks against websites and the rise of scareware.

New web infections – one new infected webpage discovered by Sophos every 4.5 seconds.

Malicious email attachments – five times more at the end of 2008 than at the beginning.

Spam-related webpages – one new webpage discovered by Sophos every 15 seconds.

New scareware websites – five identified every day.

Top malware-hosting country – US with 37 percent.

Top spam-relaying continent – Asia with 36.6 percent.

Amount of business email that is spam – 97 percent.

Sophos.com