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Table of Contents

Malware Trends:

The Attack of Blended Spyware Crime

By Pat Peterson

Spam, viruses, phishing and spyware all have one thing in common. These are tools
used by illicit business organizations to generate profits. Profits that are made at the
expense of the global Internet community. The activities of these organizations range
from unwanted marketing (in the form of spam and pop-up ads—questionable tactics
to sell legitimate products), to outright fraud (by stealing credit card numbers, account
numbers, passwords and other forms of sensitive corporate data).

FBI Investigates Costly Crime

Recently, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a study concluding
that the profits generated by these illicit organizations can be measured in billions of
dollars annually, and that online crime has grown larger than the drug trafficking industry.
While the numbers are hard to quantify, it is not hard to believe that these organizations
are professionally run, highly organized and frequently operating at a global level. As a
result, these organizations have the resources to develop very sophisticated tactics and
technology that are collectively known as “malware”.

Malware costs enterprises around the globe billions of dollars every year. These costs
come mainly in the form of disruptive side effects—IT help desk requests, desktop
cleanup and remediation, system resource consumption. On top of these very real costs,
there are significant intangible costs associated with private data being lost or compromised,
as well as the negative PR associated with this type of security breach.

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