AVG Articles and Whitepapers
AVG's IT security experts and thought leaders publish white papers from time-to-time to help everyone better understand today's security landscape.
| "AVG: The 'Mumba' Botnet Disclosed" - August 2010 One commonality that exists among botnets is the way in which cybercriminals are hiding their servers from being shut down by security researchers and law enforcement officials. One example of this is the "Mumba" botnet. Created by one of the most sophisticated group of cybercriminals on the Internet known as the Avalanche Group, the Mumba botnet is a mass-production system for deploying phishing sites and crimeware. A study conducted by AVG discovered one of the Avalanche Group's servers and revealed that - more than 55,000 unknowing Internet users' machines were compromised with data stealing malware inserted on their machines by the Mumba botnet. More than 60 gigabytes of data was identified on the server including credentials of social networking web sites, bank accounts, credit card numbers, email communications and others. Of those machines infected, 33 percent were found in the U.S., while other top infected countries included Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Canada. This report will shed some light on the Mumba botnet, along with suggested ways to protect yourself from cybercriminals. - 10 pages (PDF | 1.9 MB) |
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"AVG: Peek inside cybercrime monetisation methods and volume" - July 2010 Web-based attacks have increased in volume and in sophistication in the past few years, mostly due to the large amount of money cybercriminals can make. As these attacks have increased in popularity commercial grade tools have been introduced which are designed to assist cybercriminals in accomplishing their goals much easier and faster. These toolkits also enable non-technical people to be 'part of the game' without any knowledge of security. Such tools are known as Exploit toolkits and are widely used by cybercriminals on the Web today. AVG researchers monitored 165 domains controlled by cybercriminals, which over two months managed to infect more than 1.2 million computers worldwide out of 12 million users visiting their compromised Web pages - about 10% success rate in infection. This white paper gives an overview of the process and the results. - 6 pages (PDF | 309 KB) |
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| "AVG: Protecting your computer from tomorrow's threats today" - April 2009 Security used to be a straightforward matter. E-mail was the primary attack vector and simply installing an anti-virus product and exercising caution when opening attachments mitigated the majority of threats. When a system did become infected, the consequences were not usually particularly dire; inconvenience and data loss were the most likely consequences. But times have changed. The Web has become the attack vector of choice and today's threats are rapidly evolving, stealthy and almost always motivated by profit. This white paper provides an overview of the current threat landscape and explains why your current security solution is not enough. - 11 pages (PDF | 277 KB) |
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| "Protecting you from today's rapidly evolving, Web-borne threats" - February 2008 The challenge for personal and business computer users alike today, is to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving array of viruses, spyware, phishing scams and other threats collectively referred to as malware that can wreak havoc on their lives. This paper explains how AVG Technologies' products reduce the risk, by providing real-time protection against existing and emerging threats. - 11 pages (PDF | 156 KB) |
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