Predicting Malware

Pseudonymous B*ard writes "SANS has an interesting article showing how to predict what forms future malware will take. For example, last year there were many hurricane-related scams, while this year, another bad hurricane season is predicted. SANS has noticed that the scammers are gearing up for this and that many new domains with the words Alberto, Beryl, donation, and hurricane have been registered (Alberto & Beryl are the first two names on the hurricane list). The only question now is whether hackers will be able to preempt any of these scams before they have a chance to be used?"

No way out

[nlago]

As much as I think it sucks that people would actually do such things, they do. And they have been doing it for ages (anyone up to buy a bridge?). In the "real world" people still get caught in naughty scams, but maybe they are a little more aware nowadays. When online, however, I guess most people lower the guard; maybe it is "the internet" or the fact that it is in written form that gives some sense of seriousness to them. Add to it the fact that the vast majority of internet users does not know how easy it is to register ANY domain name in the US and there you are...

A little more education might be useful here. Also, maybe there should be a little higher barriers to domain registration. In Brazil, it is a little more difficult to set-up a domain name: you have to have an actual company, otherwise you have to restrict yourself to the "personal" TLDs. This was originally put in place to avoid a parallel market for domain names (much like what exists in the US today; in Brazil, the registrar is government-managed).

In the end, however, many people are just naïve. It would be nice if that could be a compliment...

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[Andorion]

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