By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb NewsThe number of malicious sites hosting spyware has quadrupled since the start of the year, said Richard Stiennon, Webroot's director of threat research, and now number over 300,000 URLs.
“On average, enterprise PCs have 27 pieces of spyware on their hard drives, a 19 percent increase in the last quarter alone, while a whopping 80 percent of corporate computers host at least one instance of unwanted software, whether that's adware, spyware, or a Trojan horse.
Worse, said Stiennon, evidence is accumulating that spyware is becoming more malicious than ever.
"The actual maliciousness of it is increasing," he noted. "There's simply more malicious activity per piece of spyware. They're not satisfied with making their seven cents a click by flooding systems with adware; now they're focusing on identity theft, sometimes from within an organization. Spyware's being used by insiders to, in essence, hack their employer or boss."
Instances of such activity during the second quarter included a scandal in Israel and a stymied multi-million dollar bank robbery in the U.K. that was based on spyware.
Part of the bump-up in spyware infection rates and most of the reason behind its increasing nastiness is due to pressure on spyware-as-a-business, Webroot claimed.
"There's an underlying principle that often gets overlooked: spyware's a business like any other," said C. David Moll, the chief executive of Boulder, Colo.-based Webroot. "Like any business, spyware developers are committed to increasing their profit margins by expanding their distribution channels, utilizing new products, and entering new markets.…" ”
http://www.crn.com/nl/crnupdate/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=169600391
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