Online-Criminals Forever Searching For Consumer Data

According to a fresh study that security companies Symantec and Click Forensics conducted, it's evident that cyber-criminals waste no time and even work beyond stipulated periods for gathering personal data of consumers both via e-mail advertisers and paid search.

Reports Click Forensics, on the whole, the mean click fraud in the industry was at the rate of 18.6% during Q2-2010. That's higher than the 17.4% recorded during Q1-2010 and the 12.7% recorded during Q2-2009. Also as per the company, the nations beyond the North American region experiencing considerable "cost per click" (CPC) traffic resulting in click frauds of the maximum number comprised China, Japan, Singapore, Pakistan and Ukraine.

Remarking about Click Forensics' results, the company's CEO Paul Pellman stated that during a number of recent quarters, it had been observed that the general percentage of click fraud gradually tended to grow. Pr-inside.com published this on July 21, 2010.

The CEO further said that the key causes apparently were the constant refinement of malicious software and botnets available within the rapidly expanding space for search marketing. He added that it was therefore advisable that online marketers remained vigilant about their campaigns since their expenditure for search marketing was expected to increase during the forthcoming months.

In the meantime, MessageLabs the Hosted Services of Symantec in an associated report discovers that there's also a rising tendency to crack the "Completely Automated Public Turing-test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" (CAPTCHA) systems, with increasing number of online fraudsters engaging both people and software to do the job.

Remarking about this trend, Senior Software Engineer Jason Zhang with Symantec's MessageLabs wrote that cracking CAPTCHAs had unfastened the alleged "gray economy's" i.e. criminals' business potential in reaping huge bucks from the accounts under non-chargeable e-mail services. In other words, cyber-criminals could harvest e-mail accounts under the well-known account providers via breaking their CAPTCHA mechanism, he explained. Bizreport.com published this on July 23, 2010.

Actually, by cracking the CAPTCHA associated with e-mail accounts, cyber-criminals or fraudsters could use the resultant hacked accounts to their big advantage of dispatching phishing or spam mails and thereby collecting personal details from unwary end-users.

Related article: Online Card Fraud Shows Greater Tendency Than Chip and Pin

» SPAMfighter News - 8/4/2010