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We need more companies like this that acknowledge hoarding data isn’t doing anything for the greater good, to really stamp out the core problems you have to share the data you’ve correlated across the World so everyone can put together what they have and do something about it.
It seems like with China pumping out the most malware this might be a very useful project, they have designed it quite intelligently too meaning it’s useful for many applications.
A Chinese company that has created a massive database of malware found on Chinese Web sites opened up the information to other security organizations on Thursday. Beijing-based KnownSec gathered the viruses and other information with a crawler that scans nearly 2 million Chinese Web sites each day, Zhao Wei, CEO of the security company, said in an interview in Beijing. He planned to give a presentation on the subject at the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) security conference in Kyoto, Japan this week.
The database covers more Chinese Web sites and provides more up-to-date information about their security than any other, Zhao said in the interview. China produces the majority of the world’s malware, he said. A history for each site in the database lists dates of malware infection, the strings of malicious code placed on the sites and which antivirus products defend viewers against their attacks. The database also stores tens of thousands of viruses found being distributed by the sites.
Apparently according to McAfee with the current rate of malware growth in China, it could be doubling every year.
And phishing is starting to wake up in China, so get ready for more spam and scam e-mails with terrible English
KnownSec each day finds more than 100 Trojan downloader files that have never been seen before, Zhao said. Each of those can direct a victim’s PC to download up to ten viruses. The database also has a list of Web sites that are currently compromised. Only about half of the newly infected sites KnownSec finds each day are also listed by Google as dangerous, said Zhao.
Google labels search results it has found to be potentially dangerous during scans of its index. When asked for comment, a Google spokeswoman said organizations need to work together to identify online threats and stamp them out. Security companies and national computer emergency response teams can request access to the KnownSec database, Zhao said. Security companies could use the information to shield users of their antivirus programs against new malware threats, he said.
The majority of the malware is password stealing trojans, which I’d imagine are targeted at users within China themselves and users of China based banks.
The phishing attacks are targeting these same users, either way be careful. It looks like China is jumping into the malware/phishing/spam arena with both feet so expect a rise in threats.
Source: Network World