Global phishing scams

A new survey by Symantec found that Australia's share in phishing attacks increased to 4.8 per cent of all attacks, up from 2.6 per cent in the six months to the end of December 2003, while the share of the US dropped from 58 per cent to 37 per cent. Symantec counted a "huge increase" in the number of automated bot network attacks in the same period.

Bot networks use small applications installed on infected machines to launch other attacks and the number of monitored bots rose from 2000 daily to more than 30,000 daily. What is interesting is that although home users were often blamed in other studies for the large number of security-compromised machines available to hackers and criminals, the study found malicious code was also emanating from 40 per cent of Fortune 500 companies.

Over the first half of the year, the number of monitored bots rose from 2000 daily to more than 30,000 daily, with occasional peaks of more than 75,000 daily, Symantec reported. The numbers are interesting and show a growing menace - however, it should also be considered that Symantec has a clear interest in pushing the issue, since they also sell progams to protect computers.

Nevertheless, it is alway good to be careful and by far too many people still provide personal information to "online" strangers - never talk to strangers, our advise!!