25 Feb 2010

Three-quarters of firms 'attacked online'

A survey of data management professionals from Panda Security has shown 75 per cent of businesses have suffered an online attack over the last 12 months.

Luis Corrons, technical director for Panda Security, said increasing technical innovation from fraudsters is making it increasingly difficult for firms to protect themselves.

He commented: "[Criminals] are creating polymorphic infections so every time they infect a user they are changing the file used to infect to avoid the anti-virus protection."

Furthermore, Mr Corrons noted it is small to medium-sized businesses in particular that are being caught out by fraudsters, as they lack the investment potential to upgrade their data security systems quickly enough in response to new threats.

According to a recent report by Deloitte, cyber criminals are targeting organisations and individuals with malware and anonymisation techniques that can evade current security controls.

It showed current perimeter-intrusion detection, signature-based malware and anti-virus solutions are providing little defence and are rapidly becoming obsolete.