IT security and data protection firm Sophos has published new research into the first six months of cyber-crime in 2009. The Sophos Security Threat Report examines existing and emerging security trends and has identified that criminals are doubly exploiting social networks, using them first to identify potential victims and then to attack them, both at home and at work.
In Sophos's opinion, Web 2.0 companies are concentrating on growing their user bases at the expense of properly defending their existing customers from Internet threats.
The report reveals that IT teams are worried that employees share too much personal information via social networking sites, putting their corporate infrastructure - and the sensitive data stored on it - at risk. The findings also indicate that a quarter of organisations have been exposed to spam, phishing or malware attacks via sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.
"The big Web 2.0 companies need to examine their systems and determine how, now they have gathered a huge number of members, they are going to protect them from virus writers, identity thieves, spammers and scammers," says Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos South Africa.
Another worrying finding of the report is the huge increase in scareware being encountered online. Cyber-criminals are creating scam Web sites, offering fake, paid-for anti-virus protection, at an alarming rate. Sophos now discovers 15 such sites each day, a three-fold increase over the same period in 2008.
"Novice computer users in particular are falling foul to underhanded tactics to capitalise on their fear from infection," Myroff says. "Some users may be aware that viruses and malware exist, but probably won't be savvy enough to distinguish between legitimate and phoney anti-virus protection."
Stats and findings at a glance:
* 22.5 million different samples of malware - almost double the level of June 2008
* Two-thirds of businesses fear that social networking endangers corporate security
* New Web infections - one new infected Web page discovered by Sophos every 3.6 seconds (four times faster than in first half of 2008)
* 40 000 new suspicious files examined by SophosLabs every day
* USA hosts the most malware on the Web (39.6%)
* USA computers relay the most spam (15.7%)
* 89.7% of all business e-mail is spam
In 2007, China was responsible for hosting more than 50% of all Web-based malware. However, this position has been stolen by the USA.
The top 10 list of malware-hosting countries in 2009 reads as follows:
1. United States 39.6%
2. China (incl HK) 14.7%
3. Russia 6.3%
4. Peru 4.3%
5. Germany 3.5%
6. S Korea 2.7%
7. Turkey 2.5%
8. Thailand 2.4%
9. Poland 2.3%
10. United Kingdom 2%
Others 19.7%
For more information, including statistics on e-mail threats, detection techniques and spam-relaying countries, please download the latest Sophos Security Threat Report: http://www.sophos.com/securityreportjul2009.
A journalist-specific edition of the report is available from: http://www.sophos.com/secrepjul2009.
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Sophos South Africa
NetXactics, trading as Sophos South Africa, is a South African-based company focused on the provision of security solutions. It is the Master Distributor for UK-based Sophos, one of the leaders in the provision of network access control and endpoint, e-mail and Web security and control solutions for the corporate environment. For more information, visit Sophos South Africa at http://www.sophos.co.za.
Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, Web, e-mail, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centres. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at http://www.sophos.com.
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