2011 Trends: Botnets Evolve with Steganography
On December 7 we will release our MessageLabs Intelligence 2010 Annual Security Report looking back at the changes in the threat landscape during 2010. We also use the opportunity to look ahead at potential trends for next year. In the days leading up to the publication of the report we will share a few of these trends.
Botnets Evolve with Steganography
Since the McColo ISP takedown in November 2008, which removed the command and control servers used by cyber crooks to control the activities of their botnets, and wiped out many cybercrime operation, the cybercriminals have been looking to build business continuity practices into their operations.
In 2011, we expect that botnet controllers will resort to employing steganography techniques to control their computers. This means hiding their commands in plain view – perhaps within images or music files distributed through file sharing or social networking websites. This approach will allow criminals to surreptitiously issue instructions to their botnets without relying on an ISP to host their infrastructure and minimizing the chances of discovery.
Tomorrow: Rogue Marketplace Vendors Exploit Online Digital Currencies
Published earlier:
- Global Spam Trends: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-global-spam
- Distributed Workforce Drives Security Policies: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-distributed-workforce-drives-security-policies
- Security and Services Continue Migrate to the Cloud: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-security-and-services-continue-migrate-cloud
- Making Web Security Work in an Era of Pervasive Threats: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-making-web-security-work-era-pervasive-threats
- Stuxnet Strikes Up Malware Specialization: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-stuxnet-strikes-malware-specialization
- Trending Topics Fashioned to Follow the News: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-trending-topics-fashioned-follow-news
- Automation Advances Targeted Attacks: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-automation-advances-targeted-attacks
- Targeted Attacks Diversify: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/2011-trends-targeted-attacks-diversify
About Symantec Intelligence
The Symantec Intelligence Blog published by Symantec.cloud serves as a conduit for communicating Intelligence data, trends and statistics based on analysis of cyber security threats, trends and insights from the Symantec Intelligence team comprised of many world-renowned malware and spam experts. Sitting on the front lines of defense, they have a global view of threats across multiple communication protocols drawn from the billions of web pages, email and IM messages they monitor each day. Filter by:
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