Indian cos' incur $120,833 loss due to cyber attacks
Monday, 16 August 2010, 23:16 IST
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Indian cos' incur $120,833 loss due to cyber attacks
New Delhi: In 2009 Indian enterprises lost $120,833 due to cyber attacks. Cyber criminals are using various means such as social networking and posting malicious links in instant messengers along with spam mails, reveals a new study. With cyber criminals adopting newer ways of attacking consumers and corporates via social networking sites, security solutions need to evolve from just providing antivirus protection, software maker Symantec said on Sunday. This is set to increase further if companies do not take appropriate measures to protect themselves from various threats that lead to not just financial setbacks but also loss of crucial data. With the increasing popularity of social networking sites, Symantec expects frauds against site users to grow as well. "Social engineering is already one of the primary attack vectors being used today and Symantec estimates that the number of attempted attacks using social engineering techniques is sure to increase in 2010. Third-party applications were made a target of fraud on various social networking sites and the trend is expected to continue," said Symantec vice-president (India Product Operations) Shantanu Ghosh. In its mid-year report card, Symantec said more attackers are going directly after the end-user and attempting to trick them into downloading malware or divulging sensitive information under the pretence that they are doing something perfectly innocent. As further validation that this trend is indeed developing, Facebook recently updated its application authorisation system in an effort to reduce the number of spams and misleading applications being propagated via their network, he added. Now a user is informed when an application attempts to access his or her basic information or tries to post on their Facebook Wall. This becomes more serious as many enterprises allow their employees to access social networking sites such as Facebook from the work premises. According to an early study by Symantec, 82 percent of Indian enterprises surveyed allow employees to use Facebook at work. "With the rise of polymorphic threats and unique malware variants in 2009, the industry is quickly realising that traditional approaches to antivirus solutions are not enough to protect against today's threats. Instead, approaches to security that look to ways to include all software files will become key in 2010," Symantec said. Another trend that is catching up is spam. Since 2007, spam mails have increased on an average by 15 percent. Spam volumes will continue to fluctuate in 2010 as spammers continue to adapt to the sophistication of security software. "From using the government as bait in the beginning of the year, to capitalising on India's obsession over sports and films, spammers seem to be getting better at their game of hide-and-seek this year. According to Symantec State of Spam Report for the month of July. Globally, spam comprised 88.3 percent of all messages in June and malware spam constituted almost 12 percent of all spam," said Ghosh. India ranks second in terms of spam originating countries, the highest in Asia, contributing 6 percent of global spam, he added. The report also pointed that IMs are also proving to be a menace to data security. As of June 2010, Symantec data indicates that one in eight hyperlinks (links to another website) in a chat are of a malicious website. "The use of IM is high among Indian enterprises. According to Symantec 2010 Enterprise Security Report Millennial Mobile Workforce and Data Loss, 69 percent of the surveyed firms use GTalk at work, while 61 percent of them have employees using Yahoo Messenger," said Ghosh. In 2010, Messenger, IM attacks will increase and the threats will largely be unsolicited spam, especially attacks aimed at attacking legitimate IM accounts, he added.
Source: PTI
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