MAGAZINE - Realview

RESEARCH
PHISHING AND MALWARE
• Online criminals engaging in the distribution of rogueware
and malware can earn $US10,800 a day.
(Finjan Cybercrime Intelligence Report)
• One per cent of computers worldwide are infected by
malware designed to steal sensitive information.
• Thirty-five per cent of infected PCs had up-to-date antivirus
software installed.
(Panda Labs)
• A webpage is infected every 4.5 seconds.
(Sophos Security Threat Report 2009)
• Twenty-three per cent of people worldwide will fall for
spear phishing attacks.
• Sixty per cent of corporate employees who were susceptible
to targeted spear phishing responded to the
phishing emails within three hours on average.
(The Intrepidus Group)
• Cybercrime is costing Australian businesses more than
$600 million per year.
(Australian Institute of Criminology)
• Web malware infections surged 582 per cent in 2008
• Data-theft Trojans rose 1559 per cent in 2008.
• Top five verticals susceptible to web malware infection
include energy and oil, pharmaceuticals and chemical,
engineering and construction, transportation and shipping,
and travel and entertainment. This is attributed
to the vast amounts of IP stored by these sectors.
(ScanSafe Annual Global Threat Report)
• The volume of phishing attacks detected by RSA during
2008 grew 66 per cent over those detected in 2007.
• In 2008, 44 per cent of phishing attacks were hosted
on fast-flux networks.
(RSA Anti-Fraud Command Center)
• Eighty-one percent of domains used for phishing are
legitimate domains that have been compromised.
• The average uptime for a phishing site is 52 hours.
(Anti-Phishing Working Group [APWG], Global Phishing
Survey: Trends and Domain Name Use in 2008)
• There was a 40 per cent increase in the number of US
consumers that lost money to phishing attacks in 2008.
• The average consumer loss in 2008 per phishing incident
was $US351.
(Gartner, The War on Phishing is Far From Over report)
• More than one million drive-by download pages have
been detected monthly. A drive-by download page is
one that hosts malicious software where, if users visit the
website and their computers are vulnerable, they can
be exploited without their knowledge.
(Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, April 2009)
MEDICAL/HEALTHCARE
• In the first half of 2009, the medical/healthcare sector
accounted for 13 per cent of data breaches, but an
astounding 70 per cent of compromised records.
(Identity Theft Resource Center)
GOVERNMENT
• According to the US Computer Emergency Readiness
team (US-CERT), in 2008 there were 5488 installations
of malware and hostile programs on government
computers.
• The destruction from a single wave of cyberattacks on
critical infrastructures could exceed $US700 billion,
according to research from the US Cyber Consequences
Unit.
MISCELLANEOUS
• Twenty-nine per cent of survey respondents indicated
that they were “very concerned” about their sensitive
data; 56 per cent said “somewhat concerned”.
• Twenty-two per cent said their organisation had already
found sensitive data on SharePoint sites.
• Twenty per cent did not know if they had suffered a
security breach; 9 per cent have “possibly” or actually
suffered a breach.
(Courion Corporation, Security of Microsoft SharePoint
Sites) R
34 RISK August 2009