At this year's Olympics, it could not only be Team South Africa hoping to get on the podium. Teams of online threats will be aiming to get the gold medal in causing havoc on your PC. Limbering up alongside the likes of Roland Schoeman, Natalie du Toit and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi will be the Trojan horse, the botnet and the worm competing in their own Malware Olympics.
Each malware athlete specialises in their own disciplines:
* A professional equestrian, the Trojan horse will gracefully jump over fences to get into your PC undetected before unleashing a volley of hidden programs designed to allow unauthorised access to your computer
* The botnet is a team captain whose sole aim is to take over your computer by taking on and beating its defences. The botnet will sit on your PC and tell his team what to do as they go from system to system giving the bots' manager the ability to launch attacks on Web sites.
* Warming up trackside is the worm, who this year is looking to slither its way around the track in record time and onto your hard drive so it can corrupt or modify certain files on your computer for malicious purposes.
The estimated 12 964 550 participants in this year's Malware Olympics dwarfs Beijing's expected 11 000, potentially making it the biggest sporting event of the summer. The number of athletes from Athens four years ago will grow by around 500, whereas in the malware arena, there is estimated to be over 7 000 000 more athletic computer threats vying for "medals" than in 2004.
In training, TrendLabs, Trend Micro's global threat research and support organisation, has been studying formations, tactics and threat statistics to determine who will be the winners and losers in 2008.
On the track, the young glory-hungry IRCBot is this year's favourite in the infection race, leading with 2 261 286 PCs. The veteran 2004 gold medalist MyDoom, which notched up 1 802 931 infections, will be swept aside by the fresh-faced protagonist this time around.
"The Olympics is the most prestigious event of its kind and commands a worldwide audience - both at the stadium in Beijing and online. We are fully anticipating malicious social engineering techniques to exploit people's interest in this event, luring unsuspecting users into clicking on compromised Web sites and into handing over sensitive personal information. We urge people to be aware of these types of attack and to ensure they have appropriate protection in place, both mentally and technologically," says Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro.
Preparing for a tough test at the Malware Olympics, Trend Micro will be playing in goal in the Staying Safe Online event.
To see how your PC will fare in this year's Malware Olympics, check out http://housecall.trendmicro.com/.
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