NOW READ THIS
("Security Advisory")
Submitted by: Bill Hickey
NCVA List Master
NRT-0440 MAC No Way to Protect Against Modern Cyberattacks:
Internet security researchers are warning that cyberattacks today have become so
complex that there may be no real way to completely protect against them. Lance
Spitzner, president of the Honeynet Project, said at a recent internet security
conference in Kuala Lumpur that malicious software writers have been producing
sophisticated codes, motivated mainly by the prospect of making millions of dollars
from their exploits. "The techniques used by criminal hackers are changing so
rapidly now that it's difficult to keep up with them," Spitzner said. "In the end,
it's all about returns on investment [for the hackers] because, by changing their
attacks, there is so much more money to make."
Spitzner said that in the past 18 months, "what has astounded me is not how
sophisticated the tools are but how fast they have adapted and changed."
Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at security company F-Secure, agreed that
malicious codes in the market today are much more advanced and stealthy than those
previously seen. The latest iterations of man-in-the-middle attacks and banking
Trojans are capable of stealing data from even the most careful of users, Hypponen
said.
(http://www.zdnet.com.au 10SEP07)