Online yellow pages service Yell.com has introduced a security system to combat the growing threat of data piracy.

Yell.com has had a bespoke system designed after identifying a data scraping problem – the systematic copying of information from internet-based listing services.

Nigel Ridgeon, head of Yell.com analysis and information, says scraping is a rapidly growing threat that needs to be taken seriously.

‘Our data is our main business asset so we need to be monitoring a 100 per cent of our online traffic 24/7,' he said.

His team examined usage patterns manually until the installation of Assassin security software two months ago. The system has since detected and blocked 20 per cent more IP addresses.

The real time traffic analysis identifies suspicious activity and reports it to an operation centre. Response time has improved from several hours to just minutes and the amount of data analysed from around five per cent to 100 per cent.

Ridgeon believes cost benefits will result from reduced overheads now that traffic analysis is not compiled manually.

‘We actually bought a service as well as a security platform – we've got the right balance of humans and technology working together, he said.

Graham Titterington, principal analyst at Ovum, regards data scraping as part of a larger trend towards the criminalisation of the hacking scene.

Cyber crime figures for 2005 show a 50 per cent rise in new forms of malware compared with a 50 per cent decrease in viral email.

Titterington said: ‘Cyber vandals were just showing off, now we see a much more focused and targeted criminal approach for financial gain.’

Ridgeon predicts data scraping will become an increasing threat as the online listing and information industry grows. He warns scrapers are becoming more imaginative and varied in their attacks requiring greater security innovation.

‘We don’t know how scrapers use the stolen data but we’re guessing it’s sold on to telemarketing companies or even worse our comptetitors, Ridgeon said.

Yell.com has over two million UK business listings including 174, 000 searchable advertisers. Assassin was built for Yell.com by security specialist Sentor.

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Further reading:

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