Viruses, Worms, and Trojans: Profitable for Cybercriminals but Devastating for Home-Based Businesses

Viruses and worms carrying Trojan horse code are powering massive identity theft rings. At sites like atlantictrustbank.com, oemcd.biz, mega-oem.biz, huge-sales.info and  among hundreds of others, shoppers are presented with the opportunity to buy popular software at tremendous discounts, sometimes at one-tenth the retail price. And while these sites look authentic, they are not!

According to security experts who have been monitoring their activities, the only thing all of these sites have in common is that none of them exist. When unsuspecting shoppers looking for a super bargain attempt to purchase from the sites, they never receive the merchandise they ordered and their credit cards are never charged.

So, what's behind their phony sites? The sites are their legitimate-appearing fronts that allow the cybercriminals to steal shoppers' identities that they can sell on the blackmarket for big bucks. In fact, identities and bulk credit card "dumps" are available to the highest bidder at some sites.

Hackers and malicious-code writers are increasingly automating the Internet shell game that keeps many of them one step ahead of law enforcement. The Kuwaiti hacker group Q8See is a case in point. On March 8, a Russian source reported to F-Secure analysts the existence of a Trojan horse created by Q8See called Slacke. But what made Slacke unique was the extraordinary lengths to which its authors went to hide their tracks and the mystery that remains about the group's intent.

First, the worm downloaded code from a Web site hosted in Sao Tome and Principe, a small island nation located off the Atlantic coast of Africa. Analysis by F-Secure, however, showed that the domain rights for the Web site had been sold to a company in Sweden. But registration information listed the company name as JordanChat and the location as Irbid, Jordan. The contact name was TeR0r.

As thousands of infected computers downloaded the malicious code from the Web server in Sao Tome and Principe, they were then linked to an Internet Relay Chat system operated by CNN in Atlanta. Once logged into CNN's IRC server, the systems connected to an IRC channel in Mexico called Noticias. And when security experts studied the channel, they were astonished at what they saw.

"There were 20,000 clients just sitting on the channel doing nothing. They looked like people, but they were "bots", a term that refers to programs that perform repetitive, automated functions. The bots, however, weren't alone. Accordingly, three Kuwaiti users, presumably members of Q8See, were sitting on the channel and sending commands to the bots to scan various ranges of IP addresses. And while CNN eventually shut down the chat server, nobody knows for sure what the hackers were doing. They cyber-security industry and law enforcement may never know because the cybercriminals are well organized. Whether or not they are a part of traditional organized crime doesn't matter.

Not only do these cybercriminal cause injury to the shoppers, but they also cause injury to the legitimate online business. It's no wonder that shoppers become fearful and hesitant to shop from a home-based business once he has been stung by a cybercriminal.

Internet threats to our families, our businesses and our country have already reached epidemic proportions. And according to the federal government and internet/computer industry leaders, it's only going to get worse. There's been a 543% increase in reported cyber-attacks in the U.S. since the year 2000. And more than 27 million adults in the U.S. are now victims of credit and identity theft. This is a real problem for every Internet user. And with almost 3 million new Internet users coming online every month in the U.S. alone, personal Internet security is the hottest new upcoming trend in the technology industry. There is an enormous need for the Internet security solution!

On a campaign for internet safety awareness and protection, my mission is to bring critical awareness to individuals, families, and small business owners, and to provide access to the necessary tools and ongoing expertise to secure your computer and help you stay protected.

I invite you to join the many thousands of others who have tested their computers, discovered these threats are real, and taken the necessary steps to protect themselves.

Now that you have become aware of these issues, I encourage you to share this vital information with your families, friends and communities. Together, we can reach many millions of people and inform them about the threats to their privacy and security, and help them get the protection they desperately need.

Remember: When you say "No!" to hackers and spyware, everyone wins! When you don't, we all lose!

© MMVII, Etienne A. Gibbs, MSW, Internet Safety Advocate and Educator

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Article Source: http://www.moneyachiever.com