Businesses are facing a growing threat from worms and
Trojans designed to steal confidential information from corporate
systems.
Over the past six months, the proportion of malicious code
targeting confidential information has grown from 50% to 74% of all
attacks, Symantec's latest internet security threat report
reveals.
The escalation comes amid growing evidence that hackers are
developing malicious code or renting out networks of infected
computers for financial gain.
Organisations have faced an onslaught of attacks from worms with
the capability to provide hackers with back door access to data on
their corporate systems.
They include worms such as the Mytob family, which appeared in
97 variations in June, as hackers attempted to keep one step ahead
of anti-virus systems.
Earlier this year, an international police investigation
revealed that private detectives had used a custom-made trojan to
steal business plans and other confidential information from
leading Israeli businesses.
Last year police were called in after criminals planted key
loggers on the computer systems of Sumitomo Bank in the City of
London, during an attempt at an electronic bank heist.
Criminals are increasingly resorting to using phishing e-mails,
which attempt to obtain confidential passwords and user names from
online banking websites, Symantec reveals.
Over the past six months the number of phishing e-mail attacks
has grown from 2.99 million a day to 5.70 million a day, equivalent
to one in every 250 e-mails.
In another attack to appear this year, criminals infect systems
with a Trojan, which encrypts documents, spreadsheets and database
files. Users then have to pay £110 to buy software to decrypt the
files.
Evidence has emerged that hackers are hiring out networks of
infected computers, known as bots, to criminals to use for mass
mailing spam, or launching denial of service attacks. The Symantec
research suggests that criminals rent out bots for as little as
£160 for a network of 150,000.
Over the last six months, the UK had the highest proportion of
bot-infected computers worldwide at 32%, reflecting the nation's
high take-up of broadband. The US was second, with 19%.