Online crime complaints down botnet numbers up

Complaints about Internet criminal activity fell 10 percent last year, as well as the number of computers hijacked by botnets shot more than 600 percent. Computer users may be getting savvier, but security experts that online criminals are scurrying to find new methods of attack.

Americans reported 303,809 instances of online criminal activity in 2010, down from 335,655 in the previous year, according to the Federal Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2009 Internet crime report.

IC3 has logged an average of 25,317 complaints per month in 2010 to its website. Most complaints (14.4%) regard the non-delivery of merchandise or payment. Scams using FBI name accounted for 13.2% and 9.8% of complaints were about identity theft.

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Although statistics 2010 rank as the second highest in the ten-year history of IC3, experts speculate that strong decline in the last year is a significant indicator of the growing awareness of protection for the average computer user.

On the other side of the coin, as the Internet population — companies and online merchants including — get savvier, online criminals find new routes to attack, or adapt older ones to meet the challenge of victims more informed.

Top 10 Botnet Threat Report – 2010, from security firm Damballa, shows that the total number of PC enslaved by botnet grew from 654 percent.

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A botnet is a large number of computers connected to the Internet that have been infected by malware that links them together to form a network, which is then in turn used to send spam, launch attacks against targets or distribute other forms of malware.

The "zombie" machines are often ordinary home or business PC whose owners have no idea that you have been diverted.

Botnet Software was found on more than 35% of all computers that Damballa monitors, as the technology blog that reading Dark underlined. Many machines had more than one kind of botnet malware.

Security researchers Damballa said that many botnet operators were now using their armies of zombie computers to steal data.

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