Small Businesses at Higher Risk of Cyberattacks

Since early June 2011, a team of cyber crooks had been using unsafe automated attack to inject malicious code on about 20,000-30,000 websites, that are often used by small businesses to reach customers, intimated Wayne Huang, Chief Technical Officer at website security firm Armorize, reported TIRE REVIEW on July 11, 2011.

Massive attack follows with criminals acquiring usernames and passwords of administrator accounts through unfair means. These databases can be availed by cyber criminals from data thieves, or from hacktivist groups also.

The motive of criminals behind spreading malware is diverse starting from selling false drugs to stealing from online bank accounts. To fulfill their malicious intent, they even pitch insignificant anti-virus protection.

Small business firms are more prone towards these kinds of activities as almost 15% have no firewall; 23% have no anti-spyware; 31% have no anti-spam protection; 36% firms trust on free consumer antivirus applications; and 13% have no security at all.

According to David Moeller, CEO of website monitoring and backup company CodeGuard, these websites essentially serves the purpose carrying malicious content, reports TheNews-Massanger on July 6, 2011.

Maxim Weinstein, Executive Director of the non-profit StopBadware consulting firm stated businesses generally do not understand the intention of hackers, which is to overtake control of business behind such scams, reports TheNews-Messenger on July 6, 2011.

According to Weinstein, complicated and evolved criminal underground is continuously trying to stay away from being detected while scattering these malware even more efficiently, reported TIRE REVIEW on July 11, 2011.

The infected site turns up to be one of the blacklists preserved by Google, Microsoft, and a few other entities that constantly block access to the sites that run malicious scripts.

In one of the recent event, Google notified Passen and admonished the website for containing malware and blocked access to it claimed Huang. The incident was revealed when the firm's attorney, Matt Passen clicked on the main page of his firm's website to realize a series of suspicious letters and numbers, reported TheNews-Massanger on July 6, 2011.

Users are recommended to use anti-virus software on their PCs and update them regularly in order to prevent similar incidents of malware attack.

Related article: Small Organizations Too Can Be Hackers’ Target

» SPAMfighter News - 7/20/2011