Don’t Slow Down Your Business this 2010 – Watch out for these 10 security speed bumps

Two months into the New Year and we’re already starting to see a number of our 2010 cyber security predictions come true. At the start of the new decade, cybercriminals continue to be relentless in their pursuit of new and sophisticated attacks against consumers and enterprises.
Here are 10 serious facts about security that cannot be ignored in 2010:
- Cyber Attacks Hurt Businesses: 75 percent of enterprises have suffered a cyber attack in the past 12 months, losing an average of USD $2 million annually.
- Global Spam Shift: Asia Pacific and Japan and South America are taking spam share away from the traditional leaders of North America and EMEA.
- Malicious Activity Chart Topper: China is the top country for malicious activity, accounting for 25 percent of the global total.
- Credit Cards Are Number One Item for Sale: Credit Card information is the most commonly advertised item for sale on the underground economy, accounting for 18 percent of all goods and services.
- Banks Get Phished: 76 percent of brands used in phishing attacks in 2010 were in the financial sector.
- Out with Traditional Spam, in with Targeted Scams: The total number of scam and phishing messages came in at 21 percent of all spam, which is the highest level recorded since 2007.
- News Agenda Drives Attacks: The earthquake in Haiti sadly drove up the volume of scam and phishing messages as spammers used the tragic event for their benefit.
- Cybercriminals Follow the Masses: In Asia Pacific and Japan, the top web-based attack for Oct – Dec 2009 was related to the Microsoft® Internet Explorer® ADODB.Stream Object File Installation Weakness, which accounted for 41 percent of the total.
- Increasing Popularity of New Platforms will Drive New Attacks: Whilst an increase in iPad related search terms for SEO attacks and phishing attacks were observed during the Apple iPad launch.
- Cybercriminals After Information Rather than Infrastructures: Theft of intellectual property was reported as the top cyber loss for Singapore businesses.
Further details on the above statistics can be found in the below Symantec reports:
Symantec’s 2010 State of Spam Reports
Symantec’s Quarterly Intelligence Report
Symantec’s 2010 State of Enterprise Security Report
Belinda Lim
comments
Leave a Reply





