The Rise of Cybercrime - Protecting the New Mobile Workplace

Written by: David Allison, VP of channel sales, Kaspersky Lab

The world has witnessed an unprecedented rise in global cybercrime. Criminal viruses and spyware are at record levels. Spam volumes are doubling every few months. Insider theft of confidential information has become a top concern. And, now with the advent of social networking such as Myspace, Flickr, Facebook, and LinkedIn, the stakes continue to mount.

Today's technologies offer business people countless ways to communicate and collaborate, creating a new work environment that’s no longer confined by the boundaries of the corporate network. However, the dark underside of this newfound freedom has the potential to unleash a windfall for cybercriminals that are causing ripple effects throughout corporate America.

CyberCrime Victims:
In the past fifteen years, we’ve seen a rapidly changing threat landscape, where more surgical attacks are motivated by pure profit, replacing what were previously ego-driven pranks developed by code jockeys out to impress the world with their skills. Today’s distributed network environments have indeed become an appealing target for organized crime. After all, why risk traditional crime when data theft is so much easier to execute? Businesses offer a treasure-trove of data on networks, and hackers know that this information can be swiped and easily sold for financial gain.

Indeed, hackers have devastating expertise at mass-distributing malware and can easily overwhelm companies’ defenses. Examples abound of cybercrime causing ripple effects in corporate America, with the most well-known example being the TJX Company data breach, where at least 45.7 million credit cards were compromised. While this number is astounding, even scarier is how hackers wormed their way through an entire company’s security infrastructure. Investigators believe hackers remained outside a Marshalls discount clothing store near St. Paul, MN and using an antenna and a laptop computer, decoded the data streaming through the air between hand-held price-checking devices, cash registers, and the store’s computers. This was all it took to hack into to the central TJX database in Framingham, MA and systematically steal credit card, debit card, and social security information from unsuspecting customers.

Not all attacks need to be splashy in order to be effective, as the recent Monster.com breach clearly illustrates. Limited epidemics provide just enough zombies to launch an effective distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), for example, to quietly leech a small number of banking passwords, or to set the stage for a future spam run. In Monster’s case, criminals obtained keys to the system by phishing or guessing passwords belonging to recruiters with access to Monster's resumes. The unsuspecting job seekers whose information was stolen then received phishing e-mail scams that contained a Trojan that could empty their bank accounts.

Adding to this, the Internet’s ubiquitous nature plays into the hands of these criminals. With literally worldwide access, be it from Brazil, China, Russia, the UK, or the United States, these types of focused attacks can be generated from anywhere in the world. And with local enforcement varying from significant to zero, more times than not, these criminals go unchecked.

Surviving Cybercrime—What Businesses Can Do:
With visceral threats like these affecting well-known companies, many are seeing the necessity for stronger security measures. Organizations need to find ways to extend network protection to reach remote users and an increasingly mobile workforce, while still having flexible but airtight protection. Flexibility in corporate computing is critical to protect against existing, new, and unknown security threats, such as viruses, spyware, rootkits, hacker attacks, phishing, spam, and other malicious programs. Channel education on security is also a key strategy in shifting the tide against cybercriminals. Here’s a checklist of what businesses should plan to have in their security arsenal:

Defend Every Node On The Network: It’s becoming impossible to pin down where the network perimeter ends. Customizable and scalable protection is needed for every node — from mobile phones, laptops and workstations, to file servers, mail servers, and Internet gateways. In TJX Company’s case, we see the importance of having data encrypted at every stage.

Sleuth For Cyber-Threats: There were over 80,000 new cyber attacks in 2006 alone, and this number is increasing exponentially. Be aware of the latest social engineering techniques being used, and install proactive technologies that will recognize the warning signs of malicious activity before they happen.

Stay Ahead Of The Danger: With today’s threats going global, real-time response is a necessity. Proper defense requires rapid discovery, analysis, and distribution of countermeasures. Look for solutions that not only offer top detection rates, but also fast outbreak response times and near real-time protection updates.

Intrusion Detection Deflection: Advanced heuristics are very effective at detecting password and data theft. Together with a personal firewall and an intrusion detection/prevention system, activity can be closely monitored to prevent intrusion into/out of a system.

Practice Safe Traveling: When working outside the corporate network, remote users need specially created policies that kick in as soon as they disconnect and reconnect to the network.

Education: What defines a suspicious e-mail? What rights do you have as a victim of identity theft? User education goes a long way in reducing the effectiveness of malware writers. Offer training sessions or helpful brochures with important computing guidelines so every employee is educated on the types of threats that are out there.

Whether Flickr-ing, MySpace-ing, Linking in, shopping online, or checking our bank accounts, we’re constantly placing sensitive information into unknown hands. It is imperative for channel solutions providers to protect today’s distributed workforce from nefarious attacks that can cost their customers in dollars, data, time, and credibility.

— Dave Allison is the VP of channel sales at Kaspersky Lab. Question? Comments? Feel free to contact him at dave.allison@kaspersky.com

Company Profile
Kaspersky Lab delivers the world’s most immediate protection against IT security threats, including viruses, spyware, crimeware, hackers, phishing, and spam. Kaspersky Lab products provide the world’s highest detection rates, the industry’s fastest outbreak response time and standard automated hourly updates directly from the renowned Kaspersky Internet Security Lab. More than 200 million users are protected by the company’s premium security solutions. And this technology is inside more than 120 leading global IT security, networking and messaging software companies. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.

Dave Allison, Vice President of Channel Sales
Kaspersky Lab
A software veteran, Dave “Hoops” Allison has twenty years of leadership experience in channel sales and marketing, business development and program management, architecting and developing comprehensive partner programs within the software technology field. Dave spent ten years at Symantec prior to joining Kaspersky, most recently serving as Senior Director of Channel Sales.