The latest Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), Volume XIII released by Symantec Corp. in India concludes that the Web is now the primary conduit of attack activity, as opposed to network attacks, and that online users can increasingly be infected simply by visiting everyday Web sites. The report is derived from data collected by millions of Internet sensors, first-hand research and active monitoring of hacker communications and provides a global view of the state of Internet security.

Today, hackers are using legitimate Web sites as a distribution medium to attack home and enterprise computers. Symantec noticed that attackers are particularly targeting sites that are likely to be trusted by end users, such as social networking sites.

"Users are often the weakest link in Internet security. Attackers can compromise the end user to steal confidential data from them. This can include personal information, corporate information stored insecurely on the end user’s computer, or account credentials the attacker can use to launch additional attacks," said Prabhat Singh, director, Symantec Security Response and Managed Security Services. "The use of social networking Web sites in phishing attacks is symptomatic of the trend toward targeting people rather than computers."

Specific to India, Symantec has observed that malicious activity in the form of worms, viruses and Trojans is on the rise. More than 65 percent of malicious attacks in India were through worms as compared to the global average of 22 percent. This is a clear indication that basic security patch updates are not being installed by users. Malicious code propagation vectors like file sharing/executables were behind the high proliferation of viruses in India. Symantec also observed that rampant software piracy in India aided the spread of malware by the file sharing/executables mechanism.

Particularly of concern to Indian enterprises and consumers were the increasing botnet activities in India. India had 38,502 bot-infected computers and more than 60 command and control servers, a 50 percent increase from the last reporting period. A majority of bot-infected computers were tracked in Mumbai (56 percent), Chennai (16 percent) and New Delhi (14 percent). The increase in botnet activities have led to a high number of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDOS) on Indian enterprises.

Phishing was another major cause of concern in the Indian security threat landscape. In the last six months of 2007, Symantec observed 345 unique phishing URLs with IP addresses hosted in India. Symantec also observed more than 400 unique phishing attacks on reputable Indian banks. Out of these, some of the attacks involved the use of compromised ‘.gov’ servers to launch phishing attacks on other brands.

The report also found that attackers are seeking confidential end-user information that can be fraudulently used for financial gain and are less focused on the computer or device containing the information. In the last six months of 2007, 68 percent of the most prevalent malicious threats reported to Symantec attempt to compromise confidential information.

Finally, attackers are leveraging a maturing underground economy to buy, sell and trade stolen information. This economy is now characterized by a number of traits common in traditional economies. "The sale of malicious services, outsourcing of resources such as phishing hosts and spambots, and bulk pricing are signs of a robust economy. These factors in the underground economy indicate that business is booming," said Vishal Dhupar, managing director, Symantec India. "So lucrative is the underground economy that organisations and individuals operating within it appear willing and able to change their business models or adopt new ones in response to changes in the threat landscape."