Alarming Rise In ID Theft Threats During Jan-Feb ‘07

The online threats monitoring & management solutions provider 'Cyveillance' has come up with its new report on "Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft". The report throws light on the alarming rise in Internet attacks over the first 2 months of 2007. It also identifies industries that are at maximum jeopardy due to this. This information appeared in Echannelline on 27 March 2007.

Security experts at Cyveillance have discovered that malware and phishing are the two most prevalent online ID theft risks. There was a significant jump in their numbers within the January-February 2007. Phishing, and malware attacks grew by 50%, and 200%, respectively. The company, in its research, also identified above one million of suspected stolen SSNs (Social Security Numbers) on the World Wide Web within the initial two months of this year.

Sophistication of the malware contributes to the escalated risk of online threats from being just a nuisance to a bigger threat targeted towards financial gain, as per Cyveillance research.

Keyloggers, a type of malicious program, tracks the keystrokes of a person by either the software or hardware. For most users it's a lesser-known threat for IT security. However, there has been a considerable rise in this kind of malware and cyber criminals are gaining much due to this. ITBusiness.ca published this on 26 March 2007.

It's also known that the virus distribution & attack techniques are being increasingly tailored by the purveyors of malware to benefit from various classes of the end users, as per the researchers with X-Force team of Internet Security Systems, IBM. On 27 March 2007 Computerworld published this.

According to the experts from an Atlanta based research company, phishers, and malware writers have now increased the use of the so called "personalization tools" so that they can increase the severity of their attacks.

Related article: Alarm Raise Over Vulnerability in Trend Micro’s anti-virus Tool

» SPAMfighter News - 4/3/2007