By Vic DaSilva
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

The speed with which PCs can become infected has now shortened. If your Windows computer is not properly protected, it will take 12 minutes before it becomes infected, according to London-based security company,Sophos. Sophos has detected 7,944 new viruses in the first half of 2005, a 59-percent increase over the same time span last year.

IBM reported that phishing attacks had increased 226 percent.

“IBM’s May Global Business Security Index attributes the increase in phishing attacks to the rise of zombie “botnets” being used to pump out massive volumes of the scam e-mail used in phishing attacks, as cyber-criminals attempt to increase their profits.

IBM’s most interesting find was a malware hijacking threat operating from the host name iframeDOLLARS.biz, which attempted to recruit partner websites to host a variety of malicious code to exploit Internet Explorer browsers. A successful infection would create numerous Trojans, back-door breaches and spyware installed on target computers.” Source:Globe and Mail

Here are some other interesting facts from the article.

  • in May, more than 30 percent of e-mail contained some form of virus — a 33 percent increase over the previous month.
  • In May, 68.7 per cent of inbound e-mail traffic contained some form of spam(unchanged over the last 3 months)

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