UAE The Greatest Source of All GCC Cyber-Crimes

According to Senior Regional Researcher David Emm of UK's Kaspersky Lab the Global Research & Analysis Team, UAE (United Arab Emirates) is the market among Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which receives the maximum online attacks at 56% followed with Saudi Arabia at 23.4%, while Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain are struck with 6% of the attacks each. Arabianbusiness.com published this on November 9, 2010.

Emm further says that it's now common to have automated targeted assaults that give rise to increasing security concerns among entrepreneurs in the Middle East.

According to him, targeted assaults lead to a drastic danger on companies by merely using a security flaw. Moreover, armed with internal knowledge about corporate computers as well as by abusing 0-day vulnerabilities, these assaults impose a risk on crucial set ups like power plants, oil pipelines, ships, airports, large communication infrastructures, as also international military installations, Emm explains and Zawya published it on November 9, 2010.

One example of such targeted attacks using 0-day vulnerabilities is the recent Stuxnet worm that abused several vulnerabilities for compromising SCADA systems. The malware primarily aimed at gaining admission into Simatic WinCC SCADA a system which supervises as also regulates industrial infrastructure alternatively utility-based processes. Actually, security researchers at Kaspersky Lab, after examining Stuxnet's code, emphasized that the worm didn't basically aim at infecting systems rather it tried to cause damage.

Emm continues that hitherto, Stuxnet has proved to be a highly advanced and prominent attack. According to him, cyber-criminals seek for invading an organization so they can access data on upcoming product development, confidential source code, customer details, high-profile e-mails, 3rd-party database that the victim hosts along with production system credentials.

Meanwhile, UAE was that GCC country which was the 2nd worst generator of spam following Saudi Arabia, as per the Q3-2010 report of Kaspersky. State the Kaspersky researchers that the malicious program detected within the Gulf area is similar to what the security company observes globally.

Thus Emm concludes that owing to weak Internet security, organizations can be exposed to cyber-crimes, so it's vital that they enforce intensive security measures for staying immune to targeted assaults.

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

» SPAMfighter News - 11/15/2010