Old malware is the zombie apocalypse of the cybersec world. So why is that and why can’t we fix it?
The latest Check Point Threat Index reveals that Conficker is responsible for one in six malware attacks, yet Conficker first hit the scene in 2008 and should have well and truly been dealt with you might think. Think again; old malware is the zombie apocalypse of the cyber security world. So why is that and why can’t we fix it? The Threat Index for April reveals that the top three malware variants observed were Conficker (17 percent), Sality (12 percent) and Zeroaccess (6 percent); all old threats. This doesn’t surprise Adam Tyler, Chief Innovation Officer at CSID, who told SCMagazineUK.com that “around 90 percent, if not more, of malware campaigns are based on historic and old malware samples.” Perhaps the most relevant reason is the wide availability of free cracked and easily usable malware builders (using Zeus, Citadel or Spyeye for example) coupled with there being so many out of date and unpatched systems out there.
Javvad Malik, security advocate at AlienVault, didn’t have the figures to hand but we reckon he’s probably right when he says that XP is the second most used OS across the Windows userbase. “While newer OS’s may defend against older malware, unless endpoints are upgraded or patched they will remain vulnerable” Malik points out. Rich Barger, chief intelligence officer at ThreatConnect, ran a quick look on Shodan.io and told us, “there are more than 147,000 obsolete Windows XP hosts exposed on the internet” and that’s like “those people who still cough and sneeze in public without covering their mouth.”
