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Malware targets online gamers |
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Written by Sjoeii
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Friday, 04 April 2008 |
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.”
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