Cyber criminals launch 100 hits a second on PCs

CYBER criminals are launching 100 attacks a second on the world’s computers with one attack every four seconds successfully infecting a PC, a report by a leading producer of anti- virus software has found.

The latest Symantec Global Internet Security Threat Report looked at trends up to the end of 2009 and found that 240 million new malicious programs were discovered last year. It also found that cyber criminals are increasingly focusing their attention on large enterprises.

Attackers uncover a wealth of personal information, which is openly available on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. They then launch socially engineered attacks on key individuals within targeted companies.

The survey also found that even unskilled cyber criminals are able to compromise computers and steal information using highly invasive “toolkits” which they can purchase for as little as $700 (€520).

One such toolkit which is especially popular is called Zeus (Zbot). It automates the process of creating customised malicious software capable of stealing personal information. Users are able to create millions of malicious code variants in an effort to evade detection by security software.

The report found signs that malicious activity is increasingly taking root in countries with an emerging broadband infrastructure, such as Brazil, India, Poland, Vietnam and Russia.

“In 2009, these countries moved up the rankings as a source and target of malicious activity by cyber criminals,” it said. “The findings from the report suggest that government crackdowns in developed countries have led cyber criminals to launch their attacks from the developing world, where they are less likely to be prosecuted.

“Attackers have evolved from simple scams to highly sophisticated espionage campaigns targeting some of the world’s largest corporations and government entities,” said Stephen Trilling, senior vice-president of security technology and response at Symantec.

“The scale of these attacks and the fact that they originate from across the world, makes this a truly international problem requiring the cooperation of both the private sector and world governments.”

The Symantec survey also looked at spam. It said in 2009, spam made up 88% of all email observed by Symantec, with a high of 90.4% in May and a low of 73.7% in February.

“Of the 107 billion spam messages distributed globally per day on average, 85%, were from botnets,” it said.