DoS Attacks and Ransomware Attacks Revealed by IRISSCERT

Irish businesses are encountering innovative security threats from malevolent netizens as denial of service (DoS) attacks and ransomware become more popular, disclosed by new research by Irish Reporting & information Security service (IRISSCERT).

The reports have revealed threats prior to an annual conference on cybercrime organized in Dublin by the IRRISSCERT.

Since the quantity of the threats has reduced but there is an evolution in the quality of the threats, says the reports.

Commenting on the results of the reports, Head of IRRISSCERT Brian Honan claims, "we still have the conventional intimidation of computer virus infections, security breaches, website defacements, and hijacking to horde malware or phishing websites," as reported by irishtimes.com on November 22,2012.

But, a pattern in DoS attacks against organizations has been noticed. A number of these damages can be credited to hacktivist activity, but in case of others the aim is not so definite and could be illegal elements looking to extract businesses.

According to IRISSCERT, ransomware is the method where offenders will contaminate an organization's files or network with hateful programs that utilize encryption to deliver data unusable. The convicts will then ask a fee to make the data functional.

Usually ransom ware assail striking businesses in the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector as a number of them do not have the in-house expertise, or certainly permit to enter in that expertise, to control the threat, said Honan, in a statement released by techcentral on November 19,2012.

The Irrisccert statistics says that there are 315 reported damages (73% of all incidents) of phishing invasion, and frequently these targets customers of many financial institutions, among which are outside Ireland. This kind of attack was reduced to 23% compared to last year. 12 DoS attacks are also there that are reported to Irrisccert.

According to a statement made by Honan, "We are standing our statistics on issues that were intimated to us or that we ourselves had been remained alert of. If we are not made familiar about the issues then we definitely cannot provide evidence for identifying trends and common issues," as reported by scmagazineuk.com on November 22, 2012.

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» SPAMfighter News - 12/3/2012