Home invasion: cybercriminals' latest ploy

Stuart Corner
Monday, 25 September 2006 15:12

IT Industry - Deals

Symantec's latest bi-annual Internet Security Threat Report has identified home computers, generally poorly-protected, as the target of 86 percent of all targeted attacks, followed by financial services businesses.

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Symantec says the report shows that because home users are less likely to have established security measures in place, they are being increasingly targeted by attackers for identity theft, fraud, or other financially motivated crime.

"Furthermore, attackers are now using a variety of techniques to escape detection and prolong their presence on systems in order to gain more time to steal information, hijack the computer for marketing purposes, provide remote access, or otherwise compromise confidential information for profit."

Symantec found that attackers are also refining their approach to enterprise networks as software vendors and enterprises implement security best practices and defence-in-depth strategies. "Attackers have begun to adopt new techniques such as targeting malicious code at client-side applications including Web browsers, e-mail clients, and other desktop applications," the company says.

"Vulnerabilities affecting Web applications accounted for 69 percent of all vulnerabilities documented by Symantec in the first half of 2006. Vulnerabilities in Web browsers have also become increasingly prominent, with 47 vulnerabilities documented in Mozilla browsers (compared to 17 in the last reporting period), 38 in Microsoft Internet Explorer (compared to 25), and 12 in Apple Safari (compared to six)."