Serge Droz

With the recent media attention to hysteria about cyber attacks we get questions like “Why would the Chinese attack a bee-keepers website?” Well, they don’t, as far as we can tell. But, then who is it? In this post we’ll try to give you an overview of the prime actors in the cyber-underground.

As numerous detective stories teach: “To solve a crime you have to know the motive”. Most of the miscreants in the internet underground have one goal: “Make money fast!”. Now there are tons of different ways to make money fast. One thing internet criminals realize is, that this is a numbers game. Either rob a lot of people (and we mean a lot) of small amounts, or a few of big sums. Continue reading “Who are the bad guys?”

SWITCH helps reducing malware infections in Switzerland by a factor of four!

Malware is a big issue in Switzerland too. It comes in many flavours, there is malware which tries to get at your bank account, there is malware, that converts your PC in to a spam machine, the list could be extended.

Last we reported how we remedy websites that distribute this malware. But websites are not the only source of malware. Top on the list are also e-Mail attachments, supposedly originating from Lotteries, Postal offices and so on.

Many internet users get infected, worldwide and in Switzerland. So is that it? After an infection, will you be an eternal net-zombi? Not if you live in Switzerland. Thanks to its international network SWITCH-CERT receives a daily dose of reports about infected IP-addresses in Switzerland. By far the largest number come from Team Cymru‘s CSIRT Assistance Programm. But there are other sources, such as MELANI or our own sensors.

Continue reading “Reducing malware infections in Switzerland”