Finjan’s Research Reveals Cybercrime Path to Millions

SAN JOSE, California - In its Latest Cybercrime Intelligence Report, Finjan Shows how
Rogueware Affiliate Networks use SEO Techniques to Distribute Their Rogue
Anti-Virus Software for Profit

Finjan Inc., a leader in secure web gateway products and the
provider of a unified web security solution for the enterprise market, today
announced that its Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC) managed to research
one of the rogueware affiliate networks, where members make $10,800 a day. In
the first issue of its Cybercrime Intelligence Report for 2009, Finjan shows
how the rogueware was distributed using search engine optimization (SEO)
techniques. Cybercriminals used SEO to optimize the distribution of their
rogueware. Typos and misspelled keywords (such as “obbama” and liscense”) as
well as trendy keywords taken from Google Trends system were abused to show
compromised websites as top search results. Subsequently, the traffic volume
to the compromised websites increased significantly luring masses of
potential buyers to the rogueware offering.

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The Cybercrime Intelligence Report covers the following:

- Cybercriminals are professionally organized and operate affiliate
networks to boost their malware and rogueware distribution

- To promote their rogueware, they compromise legitimate websites by
injecting SEO targeted pages which include repetitive popular search
keywords with minor typos

- Search engines indexed these injected pages and display them as top
search results

- This SEO targeted technique has proven to be very effective and yielded
almost half a million Google searches to compromised sites, according
to statistics found on the criminal’s server during the research

- 1.8M unique users were redirected to the rogue Anti-Virus software
during 16 consecutive days

- Members of the affiliate network were rewarded for each successful
redirection with 9.6 cents “a piece”, which totals $172,800 or $10,800
per day

“As reported by Finjan before, cybercriminals keep on looking
for improved methods to distribute their malware and rogueware. Since they
make money by trading stolen data or selling rogue software, they are looking
for new and innovative techniques all time. To increase the distribution
reach of their rogueware, they successfully turned to SEO,” said Yuval
Ben-Itzhak, CTO of Finjan.

The report further details how the cybercriminals created “doorways” to
redirect users searching the web. The research is described in Finjan’s first
Cybercrime Intelligence Report released today.

To download the report, please visit
www.finjan.com/cybercrime_intelligence

About MCRC

Finjan MCRC (www.finjan.com/SecurityLab.aspx?id=547)
specializes in the detection, analysis and research of web threats, including
Crimeware, Web 2.0 attacks, Trojans and other forms of malware. Our goal is
to be steps ahead of hackers and cybercriminals, who are attempting to
exploit flaws in computer platforms and applications for their profit. In
order to protect our customers from the next Crimeware wave and emerging
malware and attack vectors, Finjan MCRC is a driving force behind the
development of Finjan’s next generation of security technologies used in our
unified Secure Web Gateway solutions (
www.finjan.com/Content.aspx?id=190). For more information please also
visit our info center (www.finjan.com/Content.aspx?id=827) and blog
(www.finjan.com/MCRCblog.aspx).

About Finjan

Secure Gateway provides organizations with a unified web
security solution combining productivity, liability and bandwidth control via
URL categorization, content caching and applications control technologies.
Crimeware, malware and data leakage are proactively prevented via patented
active real-time content inspection technologies and optional anti-virus
modules. Powerful central management enables intuitive task-based policy
management, excellent drill-down reporting capabilities and easy directory
integration for all network implementation options. By integrating several
security engines in a single dedicated appliance, Finjan’s comprehensive and
integrated web security solution enables quick deployment, simplified
management and reduction of costs. Business benefits include real-time web
security (no patches or updates needed), lower total cost of ownership (TCO),
cost savings in administration efforts, lower maintenance costs, and
reduction in loss of productivity. Finjan’s security solutions have received
industry awards and recognition from leading analyst houses and publications,
including Gartner, IDC, Butler Group, SC Magazine, eWEEK, CRN, ITPro, PCPro,
ITWeek, Network Computing, and Information Security. With Finjan’s
award-winning and widely used solutions, businesses can focus on implementing
web strategies to realize their full organizational and commercial potential.
For more information about Finjan, please visit: www.finjan.com.

(c) Copyright 1996-2009. Finjan Software Inc. and its
affiliates and subsidiaries. All rights reserved.

You may not modify, license, create derivative works from,
transfer, or sell any part of its content without Finjan’s explicit
permission. The Finjan technology and/or products and/or software described
and/or referenced to in this material are protected by registered and/or
pending patents including European Patent EP 0 965 094 B1 and U.S. Patents
No. 6092194, 6154844, 6167520, 6480962, 6209103, 6298446, 6353892, 6804780,
6922693, 6944822, 6993662, 6965968, 7058822, 7076469, 7155743, 7155744,
7185358, 7418731 and may be protected by other U.S. Patents, foreign patents,
or pending applications.

Finjan, Finjan logo, Vital Security, Vulnerability Anti.dote,
Window-of-Vulnerability, RUSafe and SecureBrowsing are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Finjan Inc., and/or its affiliates and subsidiaries.
All other trademarks are the trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contacts

United States
Marina Greenwood
Activa PR
Tel: +1-415-776-5350
marina@activapr.com

UK
Neil Stinchcombe
Eskenzi PR Ltd.
Tel: +44(0)208-449-1007
neil@eskenzipr.com

Source: Finjan Software

Media Contacts: United States, Marina Greenwood, Activa PR, Tel: +1-415-776-5350, marina at activapr.com; UK, Neil Stinchcombe, Eskenzi PR Ltd., Tel: +44(0)208-449-1007, neil at eskenzipr.com