Chinese hackers flutter with malware

Security experts have just recorded a sudden increase in the number of malicious software originating from China. The reason is only one: many hackers in this country "smell the money" and the opportunity to get rich from malware.

" Just 3 - 4 months ago, the number of malware originated from China has not increased significantly. But now the numbers change every day, " said Chris Boyd, director of malware research for security firm Facetime Communications.

Previously, Southeast Asia was often the hot spot of password theft, especially with popular online games like World of Warcraft. Criminals often pursue virtual currency and assets, then sell them on auction websites.

However, what Mr. Boyd wants to emphasize is the predictive signal for a larger trend: Chinese Hacker is developing its own malware and rootkits. If, in the past, they were only strong in malware copy and modification, now, homegrown products are massively born.

Like all other parts of the world, money is the biggest engine behind this trend. " They started to realize they can make money from installing malware ."

Source: AP Roger Thompson, Exploit Prevention Labs' chief technology officer also shared this view with Boyd. Thompson said that the spread of malware from China has increased dramatically since January last year - a time when it is believed that a Chinese hacker group attacked the Superbowl website.

In addition, most of the zero-day vulnerabilities in Word and Excel have recently been linked to Chinese hackers. "I always think that the face of the new generation of hackers will be Chinese. The first is because of the large number of people, and the second is the power of technology," Thompson predicts.

Boyd said Chinese malware has been "worrying" in the past few months. Earlier this month, he discovered a Trojan called Symfly. Not only does it download a lot of adware applications, it also installs the Alexa toolbar automatically.

Alexa is a legitimate Amazon application that measures the popularity of a website. And Symfly takes advantage of this tool to lure users to access a series of websites to increase the rankings for those websites.

Trong Cam