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.