Finjan’s Research Reveals Cybercrime Path to Millions
secure web gateway products and the provider of a unified web security
solution for the enterprise market, today announced that its Malicious Code
Research Center (MCRC) managed to research one of the rogueware affiliate
networks, where members make
Cybercrime Intelligence Report for 2009, Finjan shows how the rogueware was
distributed using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Cybercriminals
used SEO to optimize the distribution of their rogueware. Typos and
misspelled keywords (such as “obbama” and liscense”) as well as trendy
keywords taken from Google Trends system were abused to show compromised
websites as top search results. Subsequently, the traffic volume to the
compromised websites increased significantly luring masses of potential
buyers to the rogueware offering.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080618/309345 )
The Cybercrime Intelligence Report covers the following:
- Cybercriminals are professionally organized and operate affiliate
networks to boost their malware and rogueware distribution
- To promote their rogueware, they compromise legitimate websites by
injecting SEO targeted pages which include repetitive popular search
keywords with minor typos
- Search engines indexed these injected pages and display them as top
search results
- This SEO targeted technique has proven to be very effective and yielded
almost half a million Google searches to compromised sites, according
to statistics found on the criminal's server during the research
- 1.8M unique users were redirected to the rogue Anti-Virus software
during 16 consecutive days
- Members of the affiliate network were rewarded for each successful
redirection with 9.6 cents "a piece", which totals $172,800 or $10,800
per day
“As reported by Finjan before, cybercriminals keep on looking for
improved methods to distribute their malware and rogueware. Since they make
money by trading stolen data or selling rogue software, they are looking for
new and innovative techniques all time. To increase the distribution reach of
their rogueware, they successfully turned to SEO,” said
of Finjan.
The report further details how the cybercriminals created “doorways” to
redirect users searching the web. The research is described in Finjan’s first
Cybercrime Intelligence Report released today.
To download the report, please visit
http://www.finjan.com/cybercrime_intelligence
About MCRC
Finjan MCRC (http://www.finjan.com/SecurityLab.aspx?id=547) specializes
in the detection, analysis and research of web threats, including Crimeware,
Web 2.0 attacks, Trojans and other forms of malware. Our goal is to be steps
ahead of hackers and cybercriminals, who are attempting to exploit flaws in
computer platforms and applications for their profit. In order to protect our
customers from the next Crimeware wave and emerging malware and attack
vectors, Finjan MCRC is a driving force behind the development of Finjan’s
next generation of security technologies used in our unified Secure Web
Gateway solutions ( http://www.finjan.com/Content.aspx?id=190). For more
information please also visit our info center
(http://www.finjan.com/Content.aspx?id=827) and blog
(http://www.finjan.com/MCRCblog.aspx).
About Finjan
Secure Gateway provides organizations with a unified web security
solution combining productivity, liability and bandwidth control via URL
categorization, content caching and applications control technologies.
Crimeware, malware and data leakage are proactively prevented via patented
active real-time content inspection technologies and optional anti-virus
modules. Powerful central management enables intuitive task-based policy
management, excellent drill-down reporting capabilities and easy directory
integration for all network implementation options. By integrating several
security engines in a single dedicated appliance, Finjan’s comprehensive and
integrated web security solution enables quick deployment, simplified
management and reduction of costs. Business benefits include real-time web
security (no patches or updates needed), lower total cost of ownership (TCO),
cost savings in administration efforts, lower maintenance costs, and
reduction in loss of productivity. Finjan’s security solutions have received
industry awards and recognition from leading analyst houses and publications,
including Gartner, IDC, Butler Group, SC Magazine, eWEEK, CRN, ITPro, PCPro,
ITWeek, Network Computing, and Information Security. With Finjan’s
award-winning and widely used solutions, businesses can focus on implementing
web strategies to realize their full organizational and commercial potential.
For more information about Finjan, please visit: http://www.finjan.com.
(c) Copyright 1996-2009. Finjan Software Inc. and its affiliates and
subsidiaries. All rights reserved.
You may not modify, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or
sell any part of its content without Finjan’s explicit permission. The Finjan
technology and/or products and/or software described and/or referenced to in
this material are protected by registered and/or pending patents including
European Patent EP 0 965 094 B1 and U.S. Patents No. 6092194, 6154844,
6167520, 6480962, 6209103, 6298446, 6353892, 6804780, 6922693, 6944822,
6993662, 6965968, 7058822, 7076469, 7155743, 7155744, 7185358, 7418731 and
may be protected by other U.S. Patents, foreign patents, or pending
applications.
Finjan, Finjan logo, Vital Security, Vulnerability Anti.dote,
Window-of-Vulnerability, RUSafe and SecureBrowsing are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Finjan Inc., and/or its affiliates and subsidiaries.
All other trademarks are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
United States
Marina Greenwood
Activa PR
Tel: +1-415-776-5350
marina@activapr.com
UK
Neil Stinchcombe
Eskenzi PR Ltd.
Tel: +44(0)208-449-1007
neil@eskenzipr.com
SOURCE Finjan Software