Crimeware

Crimeware is software that performs illegal actions unanticipated by a user running the software, which are intended to yield financial benefits to the distributor of the software.

Crimeware is a ubiquitous fact of life in modern online interactions. It is distributed via many mechanisms, including:

• Social engineering attacks convincing users to open a malicious email attachment containing crimeware; • Injection of crimeware into legitimate websites via content injection attacks such as cross-site scripting; • Exploiting security vulnerabilities through worms and other [attack]]s on security flaws in operating systems, browsers, and other commonly installed software; and • Insertion of crimeware into downloadable software that otherwise performs a desirable function.