Phishing overtakes virus and trojan attacks for the first time

For the first time the proportion of phishing attacks has exceeded the number of threats from virus or Trojan attacks, according to MessageLabs.

The increase in phishing attacks is due to several factors. Firstly, virus attacks have become more targeted and are no longer occurring as one large outbreak. Secondly, online merchants have recently shifted toward deploying two-factor authentication methods which have given rise to ‘man-in-the-middle’ phishing sites.

'We are also seeing malicious virus and phishing attacks increase in sophistication and ability to evade many preventative technologies,' said Mark Sunner, chief security analyst, MessageLabs.

'Certainly consumers are most vulnerable to phishing attacks and Trojans and are also aggravated by the increased spam volume but these problems also represent rising costs for many businesses - large and small - the world over.'

An increasing number of phishing sites are now using Flash content rather than HTML in an attempt to evade anti-phishing technology deployed in web browsers.

Mirroring last year’s virus landscape, 2007 began with another wave of Warezov attacks as successive bursts of the virus were released.

Successive virus outbreaks, such as StormWorm appear to be moving toward the W arezov model. The large numbers of new variants combine a number of anti-countermeasure features, like the use of rootkit technology, which make the virus increasingly difficult to detect and remove using traditional anti-virus methods.

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Further Reading:

MessageLabs acquires IM capability

Targeted security attacks on the rise

Spam a lot worse in 2006