Phishing Attacks Continue To Rise

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22-Mar-2005

Symantec has issued a report confirming a massive upward trend in phishing attacks.

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According to Symantec, the IT security services firm, businesses suffered an average of 13.6 security attacks per day in the second half of 2004. This is up from 10.6 attacks per day in the first six months of last year.

The Internet Security Thread Report also stated that 1,403 new security vulnerabilities had been discovered in the last half of 2004, a 13% increase from the previous 6 months.

The company stated that malicious code which is designed to reveal confidential information made up more than half of all code samples picked up by the firm. Trojan horses were making up around a third of all malicious code reports too.

The focus on phishing in the report is indicative of the growing threat the phenomenon poses. Symantec blocked 9 million phishing incidents on average per week in July 2004. Alarmingly, by the end of 2004, this had increased to 33 million, a staggering increase.

Symantec warns that financial services companies, often targeted in phishing scams, continue to bear the brunt of serious attacks. These companies suffered around 16 'severe' events for every 10,000 security events.

Source: InformationWeek

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22/03/05

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