Cybercrime surging: and it's your money they're after

By Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 15 April 2009 09:04

Technology

A trio of quite separate reports released this week on different aspects of Internet security reveals an alarmingly rapid increase in the scale, scope and success of organised attacks on IT systems for financial gain.

Verizon Business today released details from data breaches its corporate clients had called on it to investigate, saying "More electronic records were breached in 2008 than the previous four years combined, fuelled by a targeting of the financial services industry and a strong involvement of organised crime."

In 2008 Verizon Business dealt with 90 confirmed breaches comprising a total of 285 million records, and said: "The financial sector accounted for 93 percent of all such records compromised last year, and a staggering 90 percent of these records involved groups identified by law enforcement as engaged in organised crime."

Today also Symantec issued its annual Internet Security Threat report saying that during 2008 it had created more than 1.6 million new malicious code signatures in 2008. "This equates to more than 60 percent of the total malicious code signatures ever created by Symantec - a response to the rapidly increasing volume and proliferation of new malicious code threats." it said.

Symantec found that phishing continued to grow. In 2008, it detected 55,389 phishing website hosts, an increase of 66 percent over 2007, and observed a 192 percent increase in spam: from 119.6 billion messages in 2007 to 349.6 billion in 2008, 90 percent of these originating from botnets.

Symantec has identified a strong financial incentive for those seeking personal information through cybercrime. It says "there continues to be a well-organised underground economy specialising in the sale of stolen confidential data, particularly credit card and bank account credentials. This underground economy is thriving; whereas prices for goods in the legitimate market have fallen, prices for goods in the underground economy have remained consistent from 2007 through 2008."
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