U.S. Websites Host 63% of Malware

Cyber intelligence service provider Cyveillance released its new "Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report". The report notes that Web surfers in the U.S. are most vulnerable to online identity theft scams and malware attacks. It recorded that malware hosted on U.S. Websites is above 63%. Also, about 2 Million URLs around the world distributed malicious codes to visitors of those sites.

The Cyveillance report has calculated the different statistics in actual measurements. And the collection and analysis of the data was for the period April 1- June 30, 2007.

Cyveillance also found in its report that though traditional phishing attacks were fading out, the overall number of brands under attack rose by 20%. This shows that phishers keep changing their targets to suit situations. Since 2005, phishers attacked more than 1,400 companies.

After monitoring the Internet, the cyber intelligence analysts at Cyveillance have observed that the risk of malicious online threats to the U.S. citizens increased significantly from quarter to quarter, said Panos Anastassiadis, CEO of Cyveillance in the company's report press release. BusinessWire published it on August 20, 2007.

Anastassiadis added that with the continuous growth in the rate of Internet utilization, the risk for data and identity theft facing consumers and organizations was increasing.

The high rates of Internet utilization and developed economies in western nations have resulted in a rich environment of targets for online criminals. Cyveillance expects that such criminals would grow in numbers in the second half of 2007, those with highly successful methods for attacking and stealing financial and personal data from wealthy western countries like the U.S.

The report further says that Web-based malware threats have developed into a highly crafted 'fraud chain' including malware-hosting Websites, drop sites, and distribution sites. As a result, countries like the United States and China host 60% of malicious sites with United States hosting 63% of those sites to attract and distribute malicious code.

The U.S. also hosts more than 50% of the global drop sites that gather information from malware-infected computers by using screen scrapers, keyloggers and other means to silently dig out sensitive personal and financial information.

Related article: U.S. Businesses Lose $712 Per Worker Due to Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 9/6/2007