Instant messaging security firms are reporting a dramatic rise in the number of attacks.
\nAkonix Systems said the month of September holds the dubious distinction of having the most attacks in any month this year at 64.<\/p>\n
The September figure follows a disastrous August in which Akonix reported a 200 percent increase in the number of IM vulnerabilities.
\nFaceTime Security Labs is also reporting a surge in the number of IM threats. It discovered 87 threats on IM and IRC-based networks in September.<\/p>\n
“It seems like hackers go on holiday for the summer and come back with fresh attacks in the fall,” Chris Boyd, director of malware research at FaceTime Security Labs, told internetnews.com.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the hackers spent the summer brushing up on their coding skills, as well. Boyd noted that the complexity of attacks is increasing.<\/p>\n
“More interesting than the sheer number of threats, recent discoveries like Pipeline and Heartworm show increasing levels of sophistication on the part of malware creators,” Boyd said.<\/p>\n
“Pipeline went to great lengths to ensure an installation, with complex download chains and a great focus on the install method, rather than the files themselves.”<\/p>\n
As with e-mail-borne worms and viruses, threats are now also motivated primarily by financial gain, instead of fame or vandalism.<\/p>\n
Boyd also noted that modern IM threats aren’t designed to take down entire networks or servers. Rather, they are stealthy in nature and designed to avoid suspicion.<\/p>\n
“I’m actually more concerned when a rogue file activates and seemingly does nothing,” Boyd said. “It’s always a sure sign that something bad is happening beneath the surface.<\/p>\n
from [url=http:\/\/www.internetnews.com\/xSP\/article.php\/3635106]Internet News[\/url]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
IM Attacks on The Rise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bBYZ-6G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deepquest.code511.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}