2009: The Year of Cyber Crime
This past year the number of cyber attacks, cyber security breaches and internet related crime has risen steadily making e-consumers think twice about online purchases.
According to Symantec in a recent study, 87% of e-mails received in the last year were spam. That number is up ten percent since 2008. Symantec estimates that 40 trillion spam emails were sent. Globally Symantec monitors one third of the total email traffic.
And the spam that we are receiving is more dangerous than ever. “2% of span contained malware,” said the Symantec survey, “a 900% increase from the previous year.”
This past year also saw an expansion of individuals social networking account compromised such as Facebook and MySpace. Through these accounts, people were able to send affected spam mail.
In this way, cyber criminals have made the attacks more personal because they are sending out messages appropriating victims’ names, says Marian Merritt, an Internet safety advisor for Norton Anti-Virus.
Scareware or malware that has the appearance of legitimate anti-virus software usage jumped with over 43 million reports of instillation attempts. “You get a pop-up ad saying, ‘you have multiple viruses’ then asks you to download the antivirus software. Once you download those programs, they hold you hostage,” said Merritt.
As cyber threats get more notice from the media, the creators get smarter. This is one of the first years in which malware producers began to hide programs under the cover of popular celebrity or entertainment subjects. Websites such as “Who killed Michael Jackson” were actually a trap for open malware downloads.
Even the increase of DDOS attacks such as the attacks of July 4th on major U.S. government sites has given more media attention to cyber security. With all of this attention and the rise of incidents, consumers are weary of online shopping.
“At current trends, in three or four years people will start to think twice about transacting on the Web, individuals and businesses,” said Michael Fraser, director of the communications law centre at the University of Technology Sydney.
Consumers should expect to increase security thoughout all platforms and varying degree of usage. Cyber attacks are no longer limited to major websites, foreign domains or large companies.
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