As hackers are becoming more sophisticated in their attacks, we are being warned to watch out for identity theft and computer viruses.

The latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, for the first-half of 2007, suggests there has been a growth in the number of hackers trading malicious code and stolen information through their vast underground network.

"This is no longer about kids having fun and getting kudos, this is about organised crime. It is being run like a business," Symantec's Pacific vice president, David Sykes, said.

"They are not just selling their fruits of their labour, but also selling the tools. One in particular, MPack, is a professionally designed tool kit, which you can buy for around $US1,000 ($A1,190)."

MPack is one of the most popular malicious code packages available, providing hackers with the ability to develop "bots" that can infect servers, downloadable files and email attachments.

The report also found that commercially available phishing code was responsible for 42 per cent of attacks.

People who receive phishing emails, and click on the embedded link, are directed to a fake website, which looks identical to the real thing, but collects log on and password details to be used or sold on the underground market.

According to Sykes, phishers are widening their net to include social networking sites, such as eBay, Facebook and MySpace, in their bid to capture personal details.

"Traditionally, these guys have gone in around the back-alleys of the internet - gambling and porn websites. These days they are targeting more trusted sites, in particular social networking sites, and rather than actively pursue people, they are leaving traps," Sykes said.

The report showed that advertisements on underground websites for credit cards made up 22 per cent, and bank account details came in a close second with 21 per cent.
Another area of growth is multi-staged attacks, which now make up 28 of the top 50 malicious code samples.

"We're seeing a proliferation in the development of malicious modular code, or multi-stage attacks. Because the computer is normally left on, connected to broadband, it will try to exploit a vulnerability, and if it doesn't it will update itself and try another one," Sykes said.

Thankfully, Australia ranks low compared with other countries.

"In the six-month period, we detected 38,000 distinct bots in Australia, which sounds like a lot, until you know that Beijing had 700 times that," Sykes said.

But this is expected to rise as more of the country becomes connected to faster broadband.

"We see the spread of this activity is directly correlated to the spread of high-bandwidth broadband. If you list the top 10 broadband penetration countries, and then go to the top 10 sources of attack, you'll see that they're identical," Sykes said.

According to Sykes, the risk of more attacks due to increased broadband penetration is "not a threat, it's a certainty".

The report also found a dramatic increase in the number of vulnerabilities in web browser plug-ins (237, compared to 74 for the second half of 2006), and a small jump in the proportion of emails constituting spam (up two points to 61 per cent).

"Australian spam, as a percentage of email, was 34 per cent, half the global amount. That would lead you to conclude that anti-spam legislation is doing a reasonable job of keeping those guys off our shores," Sykes said.

To prevent attacks from hackers, Sykes said the best defence started with the user.

"While we have users that will click on a link from an unsolicited email and then provide log-on and password details, we're going to continue to have challenges," he said.

"People have to understand that the cyber world is not a lot different from the real world. There are bad people out there, they want to compromise your privacy, they want to do it for financial gain and we need to take to same care and precautions in the cyber world as we do in the real world."

He recommended computer users should install - at a minimum - anti-virus, firewall and anti-spam software.

Broadband users should also turn off any services not being used, including switching off the computer overnight, which will significantly reduce the risk.

And if you think hackers are only targeting Windows operating system, think again.

"As Linux becomes more commercially accepted, and we see more and more Linux users, so too are the number of malicious code attacks based on Linux," Sykes said.

"While Apple still enjoys a fairly low attack rate ... there is really no doubt that Apple and handheld PDAs are rising on the agenda and they are being attacked more and more."

Symantec's 12th Internet Security Threat Report was based on data collected from more than 40,000 sensors deployed in more than 180 countries.

Source : http://www.industrysearch.com.au/news/viewrecord.asp?id=28204