Malware targets online gamers
Kaspersky Lab has added almost as many new malicious programs to its antivirus databases in 2007, as it had done in the course of the previous 15 years. The significance of this statistic is amplified by the demise of non-commercial malware in 2007, with the motive behind all major epidemics and malicious programs during this period being financially driven.
"The Internet had never experienced anything like this onslaught of threats and throughout 2007 Kaspersky Lab did everything in its power - and sometimes even performed the impossible - in order to combat these threats," says Virus Analyst with Kaspersky Lab, Aleks Gostev. "This is a cause for serious concern, as should the situation not change - and there is no cause to think that it will - then the number of threats will again have doubled by the end of 2008."
The main trend reported in Kaspersky Lab's malware Evolution In 2007 report is a 145% increase in the number of malicious programs specifically targeting online game players (such as World of Warcraft and Lineage II gamers). Currently, eight to nine new worms that are designed to steal online game passwords appear globally every day and five to six gaming Trojans appear every hour. The sophistication of the newest generation of game-oriented malware is comparable to that of multi-purpose Trojans used to build zombie networks.
Kaspersky Lab acknowledges a mature black market for online game valuables, as another Virus Analyst with Kaspersky Lab, Sergey Golovanov explains, "The targeting of online gamers is running in parallel with the evolution of online games. Today, the theft of virtual property and game characters is a well-run business. While no universal algorithms for stealing online game passwords existed at the beginning of 2007, such algorithms were available by the year's end."
Reproduced from an article published by Security Park
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