“I have a nasty feeling that the situation is getting worse, not better,” says Patrik Runald, Security Response Manager at F-Secure Corporation. “However, we’re not giving up, either.”

The first half of 2008 has seen a growing number of targeted malware attacks on individuals, companies, and organizations. In a targeted malware attack, the attacker profiles his victim and sends an e-mail using the recipient’s name, title and perhaps references to his job function. The e-mail appears to come from a legitimate source, such as the Better Business Bureau or the IRS, and the message’s content is typically something that the recipient would expect to receive via e-mail. The e-mail prompts the victim to visit a website that then infects his computer with malware that allows the attacker to steal sensitive information from the victim’s browser.

Targeted malware attacks are also being used for political and military motives. During the recent clashes between Tibetans and the Chinese military, the battles on the streets were accompanied by political espionage on the Internet. Human rights groups, pro-Tibet organizations and individuals supporting the freedom of Tibet were attacked with a carefully targeted and technically advanced e-mail campaign that attempted to infect their computers in order to spy on their actions.

Additionally the first half of 2008 brought a rise in SQL injection attacks, in which an attacker uses a popular website to infect visitors with malware by taking advantage of a common back-end vulnerability. The exploited vulnerability is so common that these attacks have destroyed the idea of a ‘trusted website,’ and F-Secure estimates that two to three million web pages have already been affected.

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