Online Attacks by Organized Crime Rises

Attacks using large amounts compromised PCs are on the rise and you may be surprised to know the most likely source: organized crime.

For the last few years, organized crime has been cluing into the potential of the Internet, with illegal gaming, pornography and scam sites being automatically deployed by the thousands by some of the brightest minds in computing who are enjoying the fat paychecks and lavish lifestyles provided by worldwide organized crime.

However, the last year has seen an increase in what could be termed violent crime in the online arena. Compromising tens of thousands of PCs and then using those PCs to launch attacks, scams and Denial of Service attacks.

"It's gone away from kids having fun to criminals trying to get some financial benefits from what they are doing," said Mark Griffiths, a Vice President at VeriSign, who’s recent report entitled Internet Security Intelligence Briefing outlines the issue.

The report's findings are based on the data generated by the Internet services company's handling of online registrations, domain look-ups, credit card transactions and corporate network security. According to the report, attacks on home PCs are up 150% over a year ago, and powerful PCs in the continental US account for more than 90% of those attacks.

Compromised PCs, known as bots within the security community, have software surreptitiously installed by an attacker that allows the attacker to remotely control the machine.

The collections of controlled machines, or botnets, are typically used to prevent authorities from tracing the source of spam email and online attacks.

According to the report, most home PCs are still not protected to a degree which makes it difficult for organized criminals to take over thousands of PCs with a single script, a script which takes advantage of simple vulnerabilities that any updated PC would be free of.

After a group has control of thousands of PCs, known as bots, they are able to launch concentrated attacks. Attacks which appear to come from those PCs but are, in reality, coming from a secure and remote location.

The report highlights the need for Internet Service Providers to be a layer between the Internet as a whole and users, scanning for suspicious activity and taking action immediately to protect their users, themselves and the Internet as a whole from bots and groups of bots.