The largest knowledge base of Internet threats in the world

MessageLabs knows the enemy. We work around the clock to identify and stop millions of email, web and IM based threats every day before they can reach our customers. Whether its viruses, phishing attacks, malicious web links, spam, trojans, or spyware, we have a hard-earned reputation of stopping known and unknown threats long before the competition. We do this by drawing on the scale of our software as a service (SaaS) delivery model and the intelligence drawn from the billions of messages and web pages we process through our network every day. This intelligence is fed in ‘real time’ to our patented Skeptic technology to form the most comprehensive and up to date knowledge base of Internet threats in the world.

For the first time ever, we have developed images that show what the threats look like graphically based on the actual code. The images have been produced by the award winning artist, Alex Dragulescu, using the actual code provided by MessageLabs from each of the threats featured. The images have been divided into six main threat categories as follows:
Viruses

>A COMPUTER VIRUS IS A FORM OF MALWARE. SOME VIRUS CODES ATTACH THEMSELVES TO A PROGRAM IN THE HOST COMPUTER. VIRUSES THAT CAN RUN INDEPENDENTLY ARE KNOWN AS WORMS. A VIRUS IS EITHER DESIGNED TO COMPROMISE ITS HOST OR TO SELF-REPLICATE TO INFECT OTHER COMPUTERS.

Netsky Virut Parite / Netsky




Spam

>SPAM IS AN UNSOLICITED EMAIL. SPAMMERS SEND OUT MILLIONS OF IDENTICAL EMAILS, USUALLY FOR FINANCIAL GAIN. SPAM HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY SOPHISTICATED IN ORDER TO AVOID DETECTION, WITH AN INCREASE IN THE USE OF MALICIOUS LINKS, PDF, XLS AND MP3 SPAM.

Russian3 Degreesdiplomas Scamfraud4198




Phishing Attacks

>PHISHING IS A SPAMMING TECHNIQUE USED TO TRICK VICTIMS INTO REVEALING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION SUCH AS BANK DETAILS AND PASSWORDS. CYBER-CRIMINALS MIMIC EMAILS FROM REPUTABLE COMPANIES TO LURE VICTIMS TO SPOOF WEBSITES WHERE THEY ARE ASKED TO INPUT THEIR PERSONAL DETAILS.

Phishing1 Phishing2 Phishing9




Spyware

>SPYWARE IS AN APPLICATION WHICH SENDS THE VICTIM’S PRIVATE INFORMATION AND WEB SURFING HABITS TO A CYBER-CRIMINAL’S WEBSITE. SPYWARE OFTEN INSTALLS ITSELF WITHOUT THE USER’S KNOWLEDGE OR EXPLICIT PERMISSION.

Rogueware Spysherif Ghost




Malicious Links

>A MALICIOUS LINK IS A HYPERTEXT LINK THAT SENDS THE USER TO A WEBSITE. THE SITE THEN INFECTS THE VICTIM’S COMPUTER WITH MALWARE. USING WEB LINKS IS A COMMON TECHNIQUE BECAUSE IT AVOIDS THE USE OF MALICIOUS CODE WITHIN THE EMAIL.

Postcard Storm




Trojans

>UNLIKE VIRUSES, TROJANS ARE SELF-CONTAINED PROGRAMS WHICH RUN INDEPENDENTLY. AS THE NAME SUGGESTS, TROJANS ARE DISGUISED TO BE MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN THEY FIRST SEEM. THEY CAN CONCEAL MALICIOUS PAYLOADS WHICH DOWNLOAD CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION FOR CYBER-CRIMINALS.

Pwslineage Trojagentil3