McAfee Labs Quarterly Threat Report Posted

Today we unveiled our Threats Report for the fourth quarter of 2009. It highlights many of the most significant spam-generating stories in 2009 as well as the rise of political hacktivism in countries such as Poland, Latvia, Denmark, and Switzerland. The report’s findings also reveal that 2009 averaged approximately 135.5 billion spam messages per day; yet spam volume decreased by 24 percent in Q4 compared with Q3.

Spammers piggybacked heavily on leading headlines in 2009, taking advantage of breaking news stories, global tragedies, and other timely events. The Air France plane crash and Michael Jackson’s death were among the top tragedies exploited by spammers last year. McAfee researchers also noted a significant number of 2010 FIFA World Cup-themed phishing scams, Zeus Trojans masked as the CDC and referencing the H1N1 vaccine program, and “get rich quick” scams due to the rise of U.S. unemployment levels.

Politically motivated attacks are on the rise around the world, targeting popular social networking destinations, as seen recently with the Iranian Cyber Army’s political attack aimed at Twitter. The report confirms that the United States is not the sole target, nor is China the sole origin for these types of assaults. Recent political attacks targeted the Polish government, the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and Latvia’s Independence Day.

Malware–including fake security software, attacks on social networks, and AutoRun USB infections–continued to rise significantly last year. Internet-based, Web 2.0-centric attacks and threats on portable storage devices played a huge role in 2009, contributing greatly to the immense increase in threats and demonstrating how the nature of computer threats are evolving over time. Cybercriminals used social networking sites to target a new generation of victims, with Koobface activity increasing considerably during the latter part of 2009. Koobface is now hosted by servers in 46 countries, with the United States, Germany, and Denmark making up the top three hosting locations.

China Overtakes the U.S. as No. 1 Country Producing Zombies

Zombie production in the U.S. dropped significantly, from 13.1 percent in Q3 to 9.5 percent in Q4, making China the top Zombie-producing country at 12 percent. Brazil ranked third, with Russia and Germany rounding out the top five countries. The United States still remains the number one country in spam production, with Brazil and India taking the number two and three spots. Ukraine and Germany joined the list of top 10 countries producing spam for the first time in 2009.

The Geographic Distribution of Web Threats

North America is the worldwide leader in hosting malicious content, with Europe/Middle East/Africa second, followed by Asia/Pacific. In Europe, Germany holds the number one spot, followed by the Netherlands and Italy. China is the chief host for malicious content in Asia, followed by Russia and South Korea. South America is beginning to play a larger role, with Brazil as the top hosting country in that region.

China is the Worldwide Leader in SQL-Injection Attacks

Although SQL-injection attacks originate from a number of countries across the globe, China was by far the number one country hosting these assaults, at 54.4 percent. Due to the growing popularity of Adobe applications, McAfee Labs saw a number of client-targeted attack attempts to exploit Flash and Acrobat reader.

A full copy of the Q4 2009 Threats Report is available here.