“Designer” bugs on the Rise

Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Consultant at Sophos
Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Consultant at Sophos
After an in-depth research SophosLabs claims that there is a rise among cyber criminals to target and even filter out specific countries when designing ransomware and other malicious cyber-attacks.

To lure more victims, cybercriminals are now creating more customized spam having regional vernacular, brands and payment methods and creating spams that are highly clickable and hence more financially rewarding. The research also indicates that the Threat Exposure Rates (TER) for the Western Countries, though are more targeted is typically lower. The Middle Eastern Countries are in the middle range of TER, whereas the countries like Algeria, India, China and Pakistan top the charts.

The concept of filtering out specific countries has also emerged as a trend.” Cyber criminals are programming attacks to avoid certain countries or keyboards with a particular language. This could be because the crooks don’t want attacks anywhere near their launch point to better avoid detection. It could be national pride or perhaps there’s a conspiratorial undertone to create suspicion about a country by omitting it” said Chester Wisniewski, senior Security Advisor at Sophos.

Banking and Home Computer users are often always a target for all these attacks and hence require a comprehensive protection for their systems from sophisticated malware threats. Free Enterprise grade security software to detect such threats and protect both Mac and PC for home user is available at Sophos Home.

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