The purveryors of malware are becoming increasingly well-organised and financed, according to vendor Symantec"s Internet Security Threat Report. In the past e-criminals made money from selling code, estiablishing botnets, or spamming, but gangs are now performing all three functions themselves to provide more co-ordianated attacks.
"We are starting to see blended threats much more," said Ollie Whitehouse, researcher at Symantec. "This is a stark contrast to how things were working a year ago. There is more financial backing to these criminals now: the organized crime aspect has definitely increased." Whitehouse says Symantec is spotting phishing and Trojan emails specifically designed to channel information back to specific web servers - a sign that threats are being co-ordinated.