There are millions and they are (and will continue in 2010) one of the main tools of cyber criminals, which this year will focus on their social networks and Windows 7. Rootkits and still sophisticated phishing scams this year.

The data handled by the laboratory of G Data show that this year two of its more sophisticated classical tools, rootkits (applications to control systems remotely affected), increasingly complex and difficult to detect, and phishing, which will gradually ceasing to be massive to fit in form and substance to the victim (known as “spear phishing”) scams targeting employees of a particular company or organization, only to a specific department or even specific individuals from, for example, information obtained in the social networks in which it participates.

Zombie networks and web servers weakly protected

The networks of zombie computers from which you can schedule or scale spam attacks on servers, are formed in approximately 80% by computers belonging to users. “It is imperative to raise awareness and educate Internet users of the need to use an antivirus program and keep it updated to protect your computer and restrict the main tool of cybercriminals,” said Miguel Jorge, responsible for G Data Iberia.

Also increase the number of attacks on web servers that are born from previously captured by cybercriminals, especially sites with weak passwords and security holes and attacks known as “drive by download” massively infecting those Internet users who access a given site taking advantage of holes in browser security holes and can take control of computers without the user’s knowledge.

The focus of cybercriminals in 2010:

Social networks and Web 2.0. Web 2.0 offers endless possibilities of internet user interaction and access to all types of service (route planning, online games, social networking, online radio, office tools …) by using sophisticated web development techniques that produce a constant flow data without need to “refresh” itself with one click web. Unfortunately, no application is free to contain a programming error or vulnerability that can not be used to distribute malware. Since early 2009, the worm has made an intensive Koobface use Facebook, MySpace and other social networks to spread among its users and in 2010 the strategy will no doubt cybercriminals to exploit the infinite possibilities of the networks for their purposes, counting on numerous occasions with the “collaboration” of users who provide their personal data without concern.

Windows 7. Since its introduction in October 2009 has received little criticism, but if we stick to the field of security, we can say he has sacrificed some usability features to improve and achieve a simpler and more intuitive product, reserving its major enhancements for versions of company . Malware creators will put Windows 7 in the center of the target during 2010 threats technically adapting to the new OS.

The expansion of computer services in the cloud (cloud computing) are attracting cybercriminals in order to access full data servers, sometimes shared by different companies.