Cybercrime continues to ramp – ISTR

Today, sees the launch of Symantec’s Internet Security Threat (ISTR) report for 2009. As ever, if provides a fascination insight into what they key trends are in cybercrime and malicious activity. We report that we blocked some 3.2 billion attacks in 2009: that translates to 100 attacks every second. So, the bad guys have not gone away, they are actually stepping up their attacks. To counteract this, we created 2.9 million malicious code signatures in 2009, up some 71% from 2008. We actually identified more than 240 million distinct new malicious programs, a 100 percent increase over 2008.  In the last quarter of 2009, we released our new reputation based security technology to help counter this surge in the volume of malware. Of the threat instances that Symantec’s reputation-based technology protected users from last year, approximately 57% corresponded to singletons (single instances on one computer). This reinforces the reality that the malware writers are have now changed their playbook – their tactic is to limit the instances of their code in an attempt to circumvent traditional security techniques.

The ISTR also identifies some interesting developments with respect to personal email accounts. These are being bought and sold, batered and traded among  the cybercriminals for as little as 65p, or $1. Gaining access to a personal email account allows them to then distribute malware from this account via people’s trusted network of contacts. Compromised email accounts also often provide access to additional sensitive personal information, such as bank passwords, mailing addresses and phone numbers and other passwords and online accounts. The data could be used to reset passwords, potentially giving fraudsters complete access to personal accounts and indeed whole identities. It really is a wake-up call to everyone to guard their personal email accounts jealously. Instead of using it as a default filing cabinet for other login credentials and passwords, this information should be moved out of your personal email folder and stored in a safer place. People really now need to use password management tools and software. You can take a look at and download the ISTR here.

April 20, 2010 | Filed Under Announcements, Security 

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