Small Businesses More Preferred for Cyber Attacks

There are several ways in which businesses can suffer loss of money because of cybercrime. Technical Director for Panda Security, Luis Corrons, informed that the most direct type of attack can be the company bank credentials being stolen, as per the news published by Experian QAS on February 25, 2010.

Corrons stated that small and medium-sized businesses are the ones facing the highest risk as they do not own big teams of security experts. These kinds of cases are seen almost daily. He also noted that few days back, a firm in Bilbao (Spain) lost £350,000; the amount was withdrawn from its bank account by using a Trojan virus.

As far as cyber attacks are concerned, criminals are growing more and more sophisticated. Corrons said that by developing polymorphic infections that alter code after each assault, cyber crooks continue to attack consumers and businesses, reported Ashdown Group on February 25, 2010.

In addition, Corrons stated that in underworld market, from where trojans and other such stuff could be bought, criminals also sell those malicious codes with all the requisite technical updates and support.

Cyber crooks have become so refined that nearly 75% of all sized businesses worldwide have been hit by a cyber attack in past one year (2009), with 29% claiming that the crime had rose over the last 12 months (2009), reveals Symantec's findings.

Further, the bot drivers can send spam from the IP address of a company, leading to the blacklisting of all the Web connections of the company by their respective Internet service provider.

As a result, the IT official clarified that company heads should take actions to secure all hardware, as just a single infection on a single PC can result in big troubles. According to him, companies should take each and every action possible to protect their systems.

Despite the industry taking strict actions to fight the scammers, offering nearly real-time updates through computing systems, the criminals are reacting by creating new malware. Therefore, small companies are asked to invest in data protection to prevent these attacks.

Related article: Small Organizations Too Can Be Hackers’ Target

» SPAMfighter News - 3/8/2010