Trojans Responsible for 70% of Attacks on Romanian Machines

BiDefender has just launched a threat report over the first semester of 2008, which shows that the biggest threat to Romanians' security have been trojans. Seven out of the ten most dangerous malware the researchers found hiding behind what seemed to be legitimate applications were represented by this type of malware. Other findings of the BitDefender researchers showed that, besides the malicious code masquerading as legitimate software applications, attackers also exploited any unpatched software vulnerabilities on the target machines.

The most dangerous type of malware that was identified from the beginning of the year until July is Trojan.Clicker.CM, responsible for 4.20% of the total attacks. The method used by the above-mentioned trojan is that of changing system resources and enabling the opening of multiple commercial pop-ups that slow down the computer, as they use a considerable part of the bandwidth.

The second place is held by Trojan.Downloader.JS.Istbar.B, a type of malicious software that downloads and installs other types of unwanted pieces of software. Another trojan, Trojan.IFrame.AS, once downloaded, manages to access certain websites without asking for users' permission. This type of malware is triggered by a vulnerability in the HTML protocol.

The extensive spread of trojans in Romania is explained by BitDefender experts as a consequence of the fact that hijackers who target this country usually aim at financial profit. "In order to assure massive earnings, there's a need for compromising an increased number of machines, on which there must be installed as many types of malware as possible, like bots, adware, spyware, etc. Hence, the most difficult task is not spreading malware, but managing to infiltrate into the system, in order to create security breaches. What follows is that the computer is exposed to even more threats. This is how the increased volume of trojans recorded in the last six months is explained." said Chief of the Malware Analysis and Research in the AntiMalware Labs at BitDefender Sorin Dudea.