This document discusses cybercrime trends in India. It notes that India's growing internet population makes it an attractive target for cybercriminals. Malware authors are targeting India more by localizing attacks and leveraging popular search terms and news events. India contributes about 8% of global DDoS attacks and is a major source of spam. The document warns that financial motivation is the primary driver of malware now and threats are becoming more sophisticated. It calls for improved user awareness and education to address the growing malware problem.

1. Indian Cybercrime Scene Vinoo Thomas Rahul Mohandas Research Lead Research Scientist McAfee Labs McAfee Labs Caught In the Cross-Fire

2. Agenda Knowing the enemy – Who’s at your front door? India in the information age World “Wild” Web – Indian users caught in the cross fire India’s contribution to worldwide Spam, Botnet and DDOS attacks Regional malware Targeted attacks The future 2

3. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm India’s Growing Cyber Population

4. http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/2008/press/Worldwide%20Internet%20usage%2008.pdf Why do Indians go online?

5. http://www.google.com/insights/search/# What do Indians search online?

6. Breaking news? Think Malware Malware authors make use of breaking news or popular search terms to ensure a higher return on investment. Popular news items that were misused include: Searches for Michael Jackson’s death lead to malware Benazir Bhutto assassination, Bangalore Blasts Indian celebrities and cricketers

7. Riskiest Indian Celebrities 7 http://www.hindustantimes.com/cinema-news/mirchmasala/Ash-more-dangerous-than-Katrina/Article1-451587.aspx

8. Popular Indian Sites Compromised to Serve Malware 8

9. World “Wild” Web Risks on the Web are constantly changing. A site that is safe one day, can be risky the next. It’s not always easy for consumers to identify which site is safe. Even experienced users can be deceived if a trusted site was compromised to serve malware. Thousands of legitimate web sites are compromised every day to serve malware to unsuspecting users. High-profile Indian sites that been compromised to serve malware include banks, security vendors, portals, businesses, as well as educational and government sites.

10. Payload and impact of users getting infected Compromised users on a limited bandwidth Internet plan can end up getting a huge bill at the end of month – for no fault of theirs!!

11. W32/Conficker in India vs. rest of world 11

12. Conficker world infection map http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/wiki/uploads/ANY/conficker_world_map.png 12

13. W32/Conficker.worm - Infection Data http://www.team-cymru.org/Monitoring/Malevolence/conficker.html

14. Twitter-Facebook Episode Twitter, Facebook, Live Journal, YouTube, Fotki–what do they have in common? Hosted an account of a pro-Georgian blogger who went under the nickname cyxymu (taken after Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, one of Georgia’s pro-Russian breakaway republics). They all suffered a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The attack that was able to take down Twitter for several hours and significantly slow down connectivity to YouTube, Live Journal and Facebook . http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/index.php/2009/08/07/collateral-damage/

15. India’s Contribution to DDoS India’s Contribution was 8% http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/index.php/2009/08/07/collateral-damage/

16. India’s Spam Contribution http://www.trustedsource.org`

17. Phishers target Indian Banks Uses pure Social engineering to deceiveusers Stolen credentials make itsway to underground forumsand sold there Commercial Do-It-YourselfPhish kits available forIndian banks Increase in phish emailsobserved during Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode campaign. 17

18. Malware source code freely available 18

19. Malware is localized and targeted

20. Exploits using MSWord, Excel,PowerPoint, WordPad areincreasingly popular Multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in office discovered and exploited in 2009. Mostly spammed to users or hosted on malicious website Attachment claims to contain sensitive information on Pakistani Air force. Exploits a patched vulnerabilityin Microsoft ms06-028 bulletin. Targeted Attacks: Microsoft Office 20

21. Targeted Attacks: Adobe PDF 21 >80% users have Adobe Acrobat installed Easy to social engineer useras it’s considered trustworthy Over 5 new exploits releasedthis year alone includingzero-days. Most exploits use JavaScript to spray shellcode on heap Heavily deployed in webattack toolkits.

22. The future.......

24. 1H09 up 150% from 1H08

25. Malware is heavily obfuscated with packers and compression technologies

26. 80% of threats are financially motivated, up from 50% two years ago with password stealing Trojans being rampant

28. 25 Cyber Crime – India Statistics India: 63% of businesses have seen an increase in threats from 2008 to 2009 India: 40% of businesses in India had an incident that cost an average of $13,543 to fix and recover from and causing revenue loss. India is the 14th most dangerous domain for web surfing with 3.07% of Indian websites rated Red or Yellow by McAfee Site Advisor. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Internet/Chasing-the-cyber-criminal/articleshow/5166638.cms

29. Summary - What does this mean to you? The malware problem is here to stay – threats are becoming more region specific and sophisticated. Monetary reward is the primary motivation for malware authors. India’s growing cyber population makes an attractive target. Need to improve user education and awareness at grassroots level. 26

30. McAfee In Action McAfee Initiative to Fight Cybercrime http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/corporate/fight_cybercrime/ http://www.dsci.in/images/stories/mcafee_announces_grant_of_rs._2.5_mn_for_dsci.pdf 27

31. 28 McAfee Security Resources Web Sites McAfee: http://www.mcafee.com Threat Center: http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/default.asp Submit a Sample: http://vil.nai.com/vil/submit-sample.aspx Scan Your PC: http://home.mcafee.com/Downloads/FreeScanDownload.aspx Notifications Security Advisories: http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/securityadvisory/signup.aspx Word of Mouth Blog: http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/ Podcasts: http://podcasts.mcafee.com/

32. Q & A Thank You! Rahul Mohandas Vinoo Thomas vinoo@avertlabs.com rahul@avertlabs.com