Glued to Orkut or Facebook? Now there is one more reason to fear the popularity of social net-working websites. Personal information is readily available on these sites for cyber criminals to exploit.
No wonder fraud and money laundering in banks in India have more than tripled over the past few years. According to MS Sundara Rajan, chairman & managing director, Indian Bank, banking losses due to frauds in the country increased from Rs 400 crore in 2002 to about Rs 1,400 crore in 2006?and it is growing. The availability of personal data online is said to have accelerated the rate of fraud in banks, he adds.
Spam addressed to ?Dear Customer? is not nearly as effective as spam addressed to an individual using correct job titles and locations. ?When additional factual details are included, victims lower their guard exposing themselves to phishing, trojans and backdoors,? says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer, F-Secure Corporation, a global anti-virus major.
An obvious cause for concern is mass-targeted attacks and mass spear phishing, which employ detailed personal information as part of its engineering. The victim is addressed by name and details of the message match their personal details. Internet users are becoming increasingly aware of phishing and, hence, cyber criminals are also refining their techniques, he adds.
Cyber crime and malware have also been consistently increasing over the years. However, the volume of malware that previously took 20 years to accumulate can be accumulated in just one year. This year, cumulative malware detections was 5 lakh, twice that of last year, says the annual malware summary released by F-Secure.