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Cyveillance Reports Malware Attacks via Web Sites Grew

 


Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report Identifies more than 3 Million Unique Malware Attacks in Third Quarter of 2007.

By Derek Iwasiuk
DomainInformer.com
November 08, 2007

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cyveillance, the world leader in cyber intelligence, announced its latest “Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report.” During the third quarter of 2007, Cyveillance identified a significant shift in the nature of online attacks with malware-based attacks jumping 30 percent to more than 3 million attacks. In addition, attacks targeting consumers in Europe and Asia are growing substantially faster than in the United States, indicating a global expansion of online fraud schemes taking advantage of previously untapped economically developed nations.

The growth of malware in Q3 2007 is traced back to significant increases in attacks originating from outside the United States. Q3 data shows a tremendous surge in the number of malware distribution sites targeting consumers outside the United States. Cyveillance’s cyber intelligence shows malicious Web sites hosted in France and Japan grew 17 and 11 percent, respectively, while malware attacks hosted in the United States fell to 32 percent of all attacks, a significant decrease from 74 percent in Q1 2007. This data highlights the increased risk of malware-based attacks to Internet users in developed countries across Europe and Asia.

German-hosted malware drop sites, which collect stolen personally identifiable information from computers infected with malware, showed the most significant growth, with nearly double the number of sites detected in Q2. Germany, by hosting 38 percent of all the malware drop sites detected during Q3, is currently home to the largest collection of stolen data servers, outpacing the United States, with 32 percent of malware drop sites.

“Cyveillance’s comprehensive cyber intelligence gathered during Q3 2007 clearly illustrates the continued shift in the nature of online fraud schemes from traditional phishing attacks to malware,” said Panos Anastassiadis, CEO of Cyveillance. “The ease at which malware can be distributed via Web-based attacks, combined with the inability of endpoint security providers to adequately protect against them, has given rise to the global use of malware as a more sophisticated method of conducting financial fraud.”

While still occurring in high volumes, the rate of phishing attacks targeting new companies and industries has decreased significantly compared to the first two quarters of 2007. In Q3 only 95 new brands were attacked, down 66 percent from Q2 and 78 percent from Q1 respectively. Rather than identifying new targets, phishers continue to focus heavily on financial institutions such as banks and credit unions which represent 93 percent of all phishing attacks.

All figures and statistics in the Cyveillance report are actual measurements rather than projections based upon sample datasets. The cyber intelligence included in this report includes data collected and analyzed between July 1 and September 30, 2007. It represents aggregate cyber intelligence findings that Cyveillance has delivered to its OEM data partners, except where otherwise noted.

Cyveillance’s continuous monitoring technology thoroughly sweeps the Internet – monitoring and collecting information from over 200 million unique domain name servers, 150 million unique websites, 80 million blogs, 90 thousand message boards, thousands of IRC/Chat channels, billions of spam emails, bot networks and more. This approach yields the discovery of more than 100 thousand new sites each day.

For more information about Cyveillance’s research findings, please visit Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report.

About Cyveillance

Cyveillance, the world leader in cyber intelligence, provides an intelligence-led approach to security. Through continuous, comprehensive Internet monitoring and sophisticated intelligence analysis, Cyveillance proactively identifies and eliminates threats to information, infrastructure, individuals and their interactions, enabling its customers to preserve their reputation, revenues, and customer trust. Cyveillance serves the Global 2000 and OEM Data Partners – protecting the majority of the Fortune 50, regional financial institutions nationwide, and more than 30 million global consumers through its partnerships with security and service providers that include AOL and Microsoft. For more information, visit www.cyveillance.com.


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