Global_Threat_Trends_October_2010.pdf

October 2010 Feature Article: News from the cyber front Table of Contents Feature Article: News from the cyber front 3 Stuxnet 4 Securing our eCity Symposium 5 October: month of fakes 5 Virus Bulletin White Papers and others 6 AMTSO Workshop 7 The Top Ten Threats 7 About ESET 11 Additional resources 11 Feature Article: News from the cyber front Urban Schrott, IT Security Cybercrime Analyst, ESET Ireland In principle it may appear that nothing much has changed on the cyber front. Attacks, exploits, botnets, fraud, scams, spam, they are all still there in varying quantities. But there does seem to be some specific change happening by comparisonwith previous years. It appears that the media have begun following global threat trends more consistently and more often, which is definitely good news, though most still prefer just to write about whichever virus is the latest sensation. Unfortunately, credit for this can be attributed less to experts valiant and continuous efforts to raise awareness, than to the overwhelming growth and presence of cybercriminal activities, which it really isn’t possible any longer to ignore. But the media are still mainly influenced by their own perception of the “newsworthiness” of specific topics, so here is a quick look at how certain cybersecurity topics have been covered recently. Throughout this month Stuxnet has been all over the media, with varying levels of rationality in interpretation. Randy Abrams and David Harley could of course be counted upon for sensible explanations (/2010/10/15/stuxnet-vulnerabilities-for- the-non-geek and /2010/10/15/stuxnet- paper-revision), but multiple conspiracy theories also surfaced. The New York Times, for example, (/id focused on biblical references within the malwares code and pointed the finger towards Israels pursuance of cyberwarfare against Iran. But without getting into the technicalities of what Stuxnet is or isnt, the interesting p