Hacking, More for Theft of Data

According to Symantec's security team, online theft of confidential information is getting more and more sophisticated and increasingly complicated to keep track of. Already 1.6m new threats of malicious nature have been detected during 2008 alone, warns Symantec.

Delivering a speech at the Midrand-based ITWeb Security Summit during the end week of May 2009, enterprise security expert Gerald Maronde of Symantec said that malicious activity on the Web had augmented and it was the key method to infect systems. Itweb published this on May 29, 2009.

Maronde also noted that loss and theft of data was still the biggest reason for data leakages from unintended revelation of identities and data hacks.

Besides, according to Symantec's most recent data, security vulnerabilities have grown 19%. On the consumer's end, more than 95% of vulnerabilities and on the end of the server, 5% of vulnerabilities are attacked. Also, attackers aim on the browser along with client applications and plug-ins.

Maronde stated, hackers identify and hijack a site that gets large traffic by exploiting a security flaw that specifically affects the site alternatively, the Web program it harbors. And as they do the hijacking, the hackers manipulate the site's pages such that malware gets delivered to users who visit it. Many-a-time, although hackers compromised a site yet they launch their attacks from elsewhere, Maronde explained.

Other threats like trojans account for 68% of the total amount of the malicious codes that constitute the top 50 Internet threats. Further, about 66% of probable infections from malicious codes are disseminated through shared files.

Says Symantec that threats can't be seen for they remain behind the screen. Also, they divert the user's PC to a different website, often situated in a foreign country as it plants trojans onto the system. By Trojan, it means a program that is loaded onto the computers of unsuspecting Web surfers to steal their data and to transmit the same over to remote servers.

Furthermore, Symantec's report also named the sectors that are targeted most for data theft. These are education, government and healthcare. Meanwhile, USA remains the country with the most malicious activity.

Related article: Hacking Attacks Are Increasing to Haunt Banks

» SPAMfighter News - 6/6/2009