Cyber attacks are being unleashed faster than ever
before, while the number of software vulnerabilities discovered has
risen by 12% to more than 1,400 in the past six months, according
to the latest Symantec Internet Security Threat
Report.
The security company's half-yearly report found an increasing
rate of malicious attacks, up 19% in six months, with companies
surveyed reporting 38 attacks a week.
The time between the discovery of a new vulnerability to a virus
outbreak exploiting it has shortened significantly, which is
putting extra pressure on overstretched corporate IT departments
trying to patch and protect their systems, according to the
report.
The recent Blaster worm was infecting as many as 2,500 computers
an hour and struck just 26 days after the vulnerability it
exploited was announced, according to Symantec's technical services
director, Richard Archdeacon. "Patch management is absolutely
critical to the survival of a business," he said.
Symantec said it was aware of 8,000 vulnerabilities affecting
4,000 different technology products and its report highlighted the
growing menace of blended threats, which use a combination of
malicious code and vulnerabilities to launch an attack.
One blended threat alone, Slammer, disrupted systems round the
world in just a few hours. Its speed of propagation, combined with
poor configuration management on many corporate sites, enabled it
to spread so fast and cause outages for many corporations, the
report noted.
The report also highlighted the growing threat of attacks, such
as Bugbear, which try to extract confidential data form systems,
and the dangers posed by unprotected instant messaging and
peer-to-peer applications. Symantec registered a 400% increase in
the detection of malicious code.
The survey was based on analysis of 20,000 registered sensors in
more than 180 countries.