Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker 2/11/09

“I am Mr. Ming Yang, I have an obscured business suggestion for you. Your services will be paid for. Contact mingyang_desk45@hotmail.com”

Mr Yang sent me an email just now. He wants…my services…? Or something. He’s not my type. My type doesn’t have a filthy virus. Plus he is a dude.

Care for a dalliance? He’s all yours.

Great article here: Data scams have kicked into high gear as markets tumble

As the markets tank, criminals are releasing a barrage of scams. email scams of every kind, infecting peripherals, drive-by viruses and more. In September 2009 there were a record 31,000 viruses released daily. That’s EVERY DAY! Criminal hackers are taking full advantage of the down economy and the overall panic and confusion of the millions of people whose lifetime investments are tanking and others who’ve lost their jobs.

Organized criminals in the form of webmobs are well funded and out for blood. They are breaching your home PC when your kid installs a malicious program to play a game, they are going after mom and pop small businesses all the way up to major enterprise networks.

5 years ago criminal hackers would compromise your machine and wreak havoc. They’d delete your files or crash your machine. Not any more. They want your machine running smooth and efficient.

Your computer network is an asset to organized criminals. They utilize your computing power as a “botnet”, which is a robot network of computers connected to the internet sitting in your home or office. All computers connected to a botnet share something in common, usually a virus that allows for a remote control component and someone or a group of crackers controlling it. They use your PC to do the dirty work sending out more spam, offers and phish emails.

Often your PC would be used as a server to host spoofed websites designed to extract data from the not so savvy who become victimized.

Many of today’s problems stem from applications we use every day that are vulnerable to attack. In criminal hacker forums, viruses are bought and sold that will infect a web based banner advertisement that may incorporate Adobe Flash player. Once the ad is clicked, or not, all you have to do is launch the page in some cases, a piece of code, or malware infects your PC and you become a zombie PC.

Running anti-virus, keeping your operating systems critical security patches updated, firewalls, updating your applications and not being stupid can prevent most attacks.

Here is an appearance discussing an attack on peripherals on Fox News