The Hindu Business Line : Phishing attacks on the rise

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Pune March 7 It's two months since the start of the year and users have been bombarded with viruses such as Valentine Day virus and Skype virus etc and have started feeling the ferocity of attacks.

From information that is in the public domain, the total reported losses in India till date amount to over Rs 1.1 crore in 2006. Worldwide, the total losses till date due to phishing are over a billion dollars. The specific verticals being targeted by phishing include banking, finance and associated industries and telecom. This is leading various organisations in these verticals to evaluate measures at protecting consumer identity and mitigating the risk of online fraud.

Threats are obviously on the increase. Not only in terms of number but also in terms of sophistication. These include sophisticated key loggers, usage trackers, customised viruses and Trojans that give remote control, Capt Raghu Raman, Chief Executive Officer, Mahindra SSG, said.Mr Niraj Kaushik, Country Manager, Trend Micro India and SAARC, says botnets have emerged as a popular tool among attackers looking to carry out targeted attacks. Going further into 2007, these Web-based threats are expected a further increase — those threats that use the Internet to perform malicious and often self-perpetuating activities and in particular those threats targeting social networking sites will be observed.

For example: Recently Orkut came under fire for hosting a `I Hate India' community with a photograph of the burning Indian flag. A PIL was filed against Google (owners of Orkut). The PIL also prayed to appoint a controller under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and close all similar sites.The fight against spyware appears to have reached its peak and some adware is on the verge of becoming malware with the advent of click fraud. On an average, Trend Micro has identified more than two million different pieces of spam flooding the Internet each month last year.

Malicious attackers are increasingly using public networking sites to hide their malware, with unsuspecting users downloading malicious files, often triggering multiple infection routines. This is what the malware writers put together and it gives the opportunity for the rise of cyber crimes, particularly when it comes to money. The only way to control the occurrence of cyber crimes is by having better policing but we can never prevent it.

Data gathered and analysed by Trend Labs SM demonstrates that last year, organised crime continued to be key to identity theft, corporate espionage and extortion, Mr Kaushik points out. Any particular segment? Sectors such as BFSI are more vulnerable to attacks such as identity thefts because of online fraud being a lucrative business today, Mr Kaushik adds.