Criminal computer attacks up


Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

Cash, not notoriety, now main draw, Sophos says

Jim Jamieson
Province

Writers of malicious code are increasingly motivated by financial gain, not notoriety, says a 12-month review to be released today by global antivirus company Sophos.

The Security Threat Management 2005 report said organized crime is playing a increasing role in the distribution of so-called malware.

Martha Stuart, a Sophos senior security consultant, said that, as the Internet has become more commonly used, criminals have joined forced to produce multi-threat campaigns that co-ordinate viruses, spam, phishing and spyware.

“There is the ability to gain quite a bit of financial success from creating this type of malware,” said Stuart. “As people are using the Internet more, they are seeing quite a lucrative activity when they get into a computer that they can control, whether it’s financial information, denial of service attacks or other activity.”

Financial institutions alone are reported to have lost $400 million US in 2004 due to phishing. Phishing is an attempt through electronic communication to scam a person or group into revealing such things as passwords and credit-card numbers.

Stuart said Sophos has seen the number of attacks increase 48 per cent over the previous year.

The company, which has a large development and sales office in Vancouver, saw 15,907 new threats in 2005, compared to 10,724 the previous year.

© The Vancouver Province 2005



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