Global cyber attacks are becoming more targeted as web criminals employ increasingly sophisticated techniques, a new report claims.
Research by security firm MessageLabs found that threats from phishing scammers and virus programmers shifted from more traditional methods to targeted attacks last month, with cyber-criminals becoming more adept at information gathering and attack techniques, including spyware, spam, phishing and viruses.
The report details virus, spam and phishing activity trends worldwide during the three months to the end of June and claims that the trends towards convergence of threats across different communications channels, such as email, IM and web is continuing.
The MessageLabs Intelligence Report for June and the second quarter of 2006 reveals that spam rates started to rise again during the period under scrutiny, with the global ratio of spam in email traffic rising by 6.9 per cent between May and June to 64.8 per cent.
Mark Sunner, MessageLabs chief technology officer, warned: "Today, we see a growing number of emails and IMs containing links to websites where malware or spyware is automatically downloaded, as opposed to the traditional method where the message itself has a piece of malware attached. So, a harmless looking email can quickly become a web threat."
The MessageLabs study also indicates that Ireland saw the greatest increase in spam during June, with the sharpest fall recorded in Spain. India was the top nation for virus attacks last month and Germany witnessed the steepest fall.
Recent figures from the Anti-Phishing Working Group suggests that the number of phishing scams soared in May this year to a record 11,976 websites last month, with the number of companies and brands targeting rising to 137.
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