In Midst of Economic Meltdown, Malware Business is Booming

1.9 million job losses, a dollar worth less than the Canadian and Australian dollar, the collapse of the auto industry, the complete meltdown of credit. What a year it’s been for we working stiffs!

If you, as many ‘mericans already have, find yourself on the job hunt in the near future, forget about real estate, investment, Avon sales or tool and die work. Apparently, the boom industry in 2009 will be in the crimeware sector. Hopefully, with corresponding spikes in the antivirus industry (please don’t leave me to the spammers!).

According to industry insiders, 2008 saw a 258% spike in the URLs spreading contagions via phishing tactics. Classic scams like emulating login portals to harvest valuable personal data, passwords and usernames are becoming more common as cyber criminals perfect their craft. Malicious tapeworms, retroviruses, MoBo-VD, circuitry eating zombie nets and Trojan donkey-kits are proliferating rapidly.

If you do a lot online banking, social networking, or even MMORPGing think twice before throwing your social security number, birthday, maiden name and blood type around the internet. Phishing tactics are no longer as transparent as the koobface worm we’re still seeing on Facebook.

These dweeb and nerd criminals manage to make some convincing mimic logon pages and tricky programs. Red flags to look for include any obviously ex-Soviet URLs (.ru, .az, .kz, .by .cz, .tm et al), key misspellings (think Homtail, hotmale, or hottamale instead of hotmail), and anything that has a .exe within a hundred feet of it.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking to get involved in the profitable crimeware industry, there are great opportunities out there. Why not work as the overlord of a zombie botnet? Trading in stolen credit card numbers would be a refreshing career change, no? Just be prepared to feel my wrath, and the wrath of anyone else who has ever lost personal information!

If you’re not feeling ambitious enough for a fast track career in malware development, you’re probably going to want arm yourself with up-to-date antivirus and antispyware software. Check out our software reviews to keep your identity secure.