NOW READ THIS
("Security Advisory")

Go Back

---

Submitted by: Bill Hickey
NCVA Listmaster

NRT-0618 Industry trend report warns about Trojans, mobile phone worms:

On 24 September 2008, Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab released its mid‑year report on current trends in malware and spam, according to an online press article.

Kaspersky defined two new malware categories as TrojWare and VirWare. VirWare refers to viruses, worms, and any malicious software that can propagate independently. TrojWare includes backdoors, rootkits, Trojans, and any malicious software that only propagates if it can trick a user into launching it. According to the report, the average consumer may fear viruses more; however, 92 percent of threats observed by Kaspersky fall into the Trojware category.

Kaspersky also reports a change in direction for the budding mobile malware category. "Instead of attacking smartphones, virus writers ... started to specialize in Trojan programs for J2ME, which are capable of running on almost any mobile phone.' The 150‑odd threats of this type directly rob the user by sending SMS messages to premium‑rate numbers. These threats are primitive at present, yet effective. Kaspersky anticipates 'a continued increase in the number of malicious programs with Trojan SMS behavior."

[PCMag.com 24Sep08]

Last Modified: Friday, 10-Oct-2008 12:31:24 EDT