Majority of Malware Threats Originates Within the US

According to the first half yearly report released by the security firm Cyveillance, most of the malware threats on the Internet still originates within the US. As a matter of fact, the country accounts for 54% of the malware and circulates more than half of the malware.

Although other developed nations like, Canada (3%), China (14%), and the United Kingdom (1%) do not circulate the same amount of malware compared to the U.S., still are a significant danger to netizens.

Apart from malware, the US is ahead in terms of phishing attack. Cyveillance, during the first half of 2010, found a total of 126,644 phishing attacks worldwide for an average of more than 21,000 exclusive monthly attacks with the volume remaining comparatively stable during the period.

The US accounted for around 48% of all phishing attacks during H1-2010, which was 1 times more than other nations such as Canada, France, Republic of Korea, and Great Britain, each accounting for 4% of all phishing attacks.

Although the number of worldwide phishing attacks during this period has reduced compared to the H2-2009, the overall volume proves that phishing is still one of the major threats on the Internet.

New report by Cyveillance also states that while banks and credit unions remains the main targets of phishers, social networking sites and universities are also becoming hot choices of phishers as these kinds of websites require users to share personal information. Cybercrooks are accessing private information through simple searches to execute complicated social engineering scams.

As a matter of fact, criminals use these details to form botnets. Botnets are the applications that facilitate illegal access to or hold over a user's system. Once compromised, the system allows the criminals to carry malicious activities like, denial of service attacks or spamming.

Commenting on the whole matter, Panos Anastassiadis, Chief Operating Officer at Cyveillance highlighted that it was essential for organizations and employees to be ready beyond just executing conventional security measures; they needed to constantly educate individuals regarding best practices of cyber to be safeguarded against phishing and other attacks, as reported by upi on October 11, 2010.

Related article: Majority of Internet-linked PCs Unsafe, Says Secunia

» SPAMfighter News - 10/18/2010