Cyberattacks, spam grew at alarming rate in 2008, report says
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Threats from cybercriminals, spammers and computer viruses continued to grow at an alarming pace in 2008, according to the latest Internet Security Threat Report from network security firm Symantec.
The security firm said it created more than 1.6 million new malicious code signatures in 2008, which represents more than 60 percent of the total malicious code signatures ever created by Symantec. The company said its signatures helped block more than 245 million attempted malicious code attacks across the globe each month during 2008.
Identity theft continued to be a major vulnerability due to phishing attacks by well-organized cybercriminals, the report said. Attackers are relying more on customized malicious code toolkits to develop and distribute their threats, 90 percent of which Symantec identified as attempts to steal confidential information.
The report highlighted the increased resilience of malware authors against attempts to block their activities - such as the shutdown of two U.S. botnet hosting outfits, which could not prevent botnet operators from finding alternate hosting websites.
Despite a surge in reports about cyberattacks based in China, the report found that web-based attacks originated mostly from the United States (38 percent), followed by China (13 percent) and the Ukraine (12 percent).
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