ESET White Paper Sample

Having analysed the most relevant aspects of this year’s computer attacks and the malware development industry, ESET Latin America's Research Team has created this report to summarize the main trends for 2011 as regards malicious programs and antivirus security.

Crimeware (malware related to computer crimes committed in order to gain financial profit), which was predicted a year ago as the main trend for 2010, has proven its maturity by the increase in the number of malicious programs to which the term can be legitimately applied, as well as the increase in the proportion of this kind of malware to more traditional malicious code.

Botnets appeared in connection with both cybercrime and malware. The activities of most botnet administrators (at least the type of botnet reliant on bot Trojan malware with which ESET is usually most concerned) have always been illegal in most jurisdictions: there are few countries where there are no laws against the creation of malware for purposes of unauthorized access, unauthorized modification, the unauthorized use of system resources, and so on.