Company Warns Storm Might Be Used for More Malicious Activity ATLANTA, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- SecureWorks, the largest managedinformation security services provider safeguarding 1,800 clients and morefinancial institutions than any other vendor, announced today that it hasseen an onslaught of Storm Worm attacks in the last two months. "From thefirst of January to the end of May, we only saw 71,342 Storm attacks," saidJoe Stewart, Senior Security Researcher for SecureWorks. "However, sinceJune we have blocked 20,200,101 Storm attacks." "The number of unique, infected hosts (bots), from which the attack isbeing launched by email, has also increased dramatically," said Stewart."They went from 2,815 in the beginning of 2007 through the end of May to atotal of 1.7 million for the months of June and July." Storm Botnet Might Be Used for Attacks "Storm has historically been used for spam but the hacker, controllingthe trojan, has amassed so many infected hosts in the botnet that itsnetwork can easily support activities other than spamming," said Stewart."We don't know the motive of the Storm author; however one possible theorycould be that the hacker plans to use the trojan for more maliciousactivity than sending spam. It could be that the hacker is rapidly buildingup the botnet so it can be leased to other hackers so that they can launchmassive attacks against whatever target they choose: an organization,country, etc. More than ever, it is critical that organizations and homecomputer users put protections in place to block the Storm Worm trojan."http://www.secureworks.com/research/threats/storm-worm/ How to Protect Against the Storm Trojan For corporate computer users, as well as home computer users, the bestdefense is to be aware of the scams connected to the Storm trojan, whichinclude emails containing links leading to fake e-Cards from family membersand friends, news stories highlighting catastrophic events, etc. "The Storm trojan relies on social engineering as its best ally so itis really important that computer users keep their guard up and besuspicious of any unsolicited email containing an attachment or a link,"continued Stewart. "Even if it mentions something you are familiar with orpromises some sort of critical data, always check with the sender to seewhat it is and why they sent it." Another way computer users can protect themselves from the Storm trojanis to block peer-to-peer networking. "When the Storm trojan runs, itattempts to link up with other infected hosts via peer-to-peer networking,"said Stewart. "If that function is blocked, then the user's computer cannotbecome a part of the Storm botnet." In order to fully protect one's corporate computer users from thesethreats, organizations must engage an in-house security team or a managedsecurity services firm. These teams employ experts who can track and blockthreats coming in via email, the web or instant messaging based on theirwider view of Internet traffic and their expertise in these kinds of scams. About SecureWorks With over 1,800 clients, SecureWorks has become the largest managedsecurity services provider safeguarding more financial institutions thanany other vendor. SecureWorks provides the most effective security servicesby leveraging our integrated security management platform, advancedsecurity research, and 100 percent GIAC certified experts. By providing afull breadth of security services, SecureWorks offers fully-managed,co-managed, monitored or self-service security solutions to meet the needsof Fortune 100 companies with large security teams as well as smallercompanies with no security expertise. In addition, SecureWorks has helpedcompanies pass over 2,400 compliance audits by providing comprehensive andstraight-forward board and examination reports. SecureWorks won SCMagazine's 2007 and 2006 MSSP of the Year award and the 2006 Best IntrusionPrevention award, Frost & Sullivan's 2006 Entrepreneurial Company of theYear award and was named to the Inc 500 and Deloitte & Touche lists offastest-growing companies for the past two years.
