Fortinet Threat Landscape Research Reveals Fake Antivirus Malware Accounted for 58 Percent of New Malware Activity in August

Zeus Botnet Variant Takes 2nd Place in Monthly Malware Activity Due to its Source Code Being Cracked and Leaked

MALAYSIA, 13 September, 2011 ― Fortinet® – a leading network security provider and the worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions – today released its latest Threat Landscape report, which reveals the fake antivirus loader W32/FraudLoad.OR accounted for 58 percent of the new malware activity tracked in August.

“Traditionally, FraudLoad installs fake antivirus utilities on an unsuspecting user’s system, but in our labs, we find that it is all too common for botnet loaders like this to download additional malware such as spam bots,” said Derek Manky, senior security strategist at Fortinet.

Right behind FraudLoad, a newly discovered Zeus botnet variant was the second most active malware this period.

“The surge in Zeus activity doesn’t surprise us given the botnet’s popularity and the fact that its source code was hacked and subsequently leaked to the public last May,” Manky continued. “We believe it’s highly likely that we will continue to see Zeus and SpyEye − another popular botnet whose source code was also recently cracked and leaked publicly − to spread in waves in the coming months.”

In addition, this period the W32/Yakes botnet loader and four variants were observed spreading through spam emails using traditional major credit card manufacturer templates. The email that arrives at the victim’s inbox typically carries the subject line "Credit card is blocked.” The text within the email explains that the recipient's credit card was involved with illegal operations and has been disabled. The email then advises the recipient to open an attached file for details. When the user clicks on the attachment, the Yakes botnet is installed onto their computer.