Many 'lack knowledge' of sophisticated phishing attacks

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by: bythesea
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Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 Time: 12:04 PM
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Employees are knowledgeable to the workings of traditional phishing attacks, but many are not so well informed when it comes to more sophisticated schemes, it has been claimed. This could be a big problem for organisations looking to avoid an IT intrusion as Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at IT security solutions and services provider Sophos, claimed that some attacks have become "very sophisticated". "The technology needs to be in place to stop these things, but you also need to be vigilant," she commented. She advocated the use of different passwords for user's varying accounts and changing them on a regular basis. Check out Maintel for secure business telephone systems.

According to the third annual UK Cybercrime report from Garlik, cybercriminals were responsible for more than 3.6 million illegal online acts during 2008. The research also found that there was a 207 per cent rise in account takeover fraud, hinting that criminals have now moved their efforts from opening new accounts with stolen identities to accessing accounts that already exist. Cybercriminals are using more advanced techniques to attack banks and steal customer details, it has been suggested. It seems that problems surrounding cybercrime are on the rise, with new techniques to rob online bank accounts being leveraged - a trend that is expected to grow, according to Finjan's Malicious Code Research Centre (MCRC).

The MCRC's Cybercrime Intelligence Report picked up on one case where a cyber gang used a combination of trojans and money mules to steal hundreds of thousands of euros. They managed to minimise the chances of being detected by the anti-fraud systems used by banks. Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer at Finjan, commented: "There is always what I would call a competition between the cybercriminals and the banks, trying to each improve their systems to achieve their goal." He added that trying to trace every transaction and work out if it is a real one or it is a fraudulent one is an ongoing challenge.

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