Cyber Thieves Targeting Infrastructure
Although it may seem as if cyber fraud is already rampant online, cybercriminals are coming up with new and even more malevolent ways to attack people online in exchange for greater pay-offs. Over the last couple of months many cyber thieves have started to target elements of website infrastructure such as hosting services, domain naming services, and certificate issuing authorities. Their effort is to spread malware farther and more efficiently.
CTO and chairman of Marble Security, Dave Jevans, stated that the criminals are now targeting infrastructure elements of the internet and each attack is very well planned and orchestrated to have very severe results.
By attacking hosting services cyber thieves are able to gain access to thousands of websites at one time allowing them to quickly get spread their malware. They also attack email servers so that they can get to millions of messages daily and millions of email addresses. Jevans explained that once a cyber criminal is able to get into an email provider they can send out email filled with malware to millions of users that have no reason to distrust the company that appears to be the original sender.
CTO and president of Internet Identity, Rod Rasmussen, stated that this activity is just one component of a much larger pattern that they are now starting to see. He further explained that cyber criminals are now using shared hosting services for a wide array of cyber crimes that include infecting computers with malware, the creation of botnets, and to launch large denial-of-service attacks.
Jevans added that this is a large problem because it is really an attack at the business infrastructure of the internet and it has the potential to affect hundreds of millions globally. He also noted that you could make the internet completely secure for about $200 billion, but of course this amount is too astronomical to ever be a solution.
