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December Witnesses Higher Number of Phishing Attacks

According to a new study released by Network Box on December 30, 2009, there has been high number of phishing attacks during December 2009 as cyber criminals exploited a larger number of people, shopping online for Christmas.

Commenting on the reason, Simon Heron, Internet Security Analyst at Network Box, stated that the period nearing Christmas was always a time when computer hackers targeted the vulnerable. During this period, online shopping was conducted, with a lot of money expended compared to any other period during the year, the analyst said, as reported by V3 on December 30, 2009.

In a study related to Web-based attacks, the security company estimated that around 57% of the total attacks accounted for phishing assaults during December 2009, up from 28.3% during November same year.

But these discoveries do not commensurate with the Symantec report issued earlier during December 2009. The company noted a 6% decline in the total phishing attacks from November 2009. Further, a 26% decline was also noted in phishing websites in languages other than English from November 2009.

Network Box further discovered that Brazil was the biggest generator of spam and viruses during December 2009. The country reportedly produced 9.1% of the total spam and 20.9% of the total viruses then compared to 8% and 14% respectively during November 2009.

Besides, the company cautioned that there was a large contribution of India to the overall threat landscape. It contributed 6.8% of the global spam, higher than 4.2% in November 2009, while viruses from the sub-continent emanated at 4.1%, unchanged from November 2009.

Heron further stated that Christmas presented rich opportunities to phishers and phishing attacks would continue to target online shoppers during January 2010. He therefore urged Internet bargainers on behalf of his organization to remain watchful.

Some security specialists say that there will be a rise in spear phishing during 2010. URL-condensing too will be widely used in phishing attacks. Additionally, spear phishers' already increasing attacks against big enterprises' back accounts to steal money could become very prominent during 2010, the experts caution.

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