Fraudsters have stepped up their attack on home internet users, with attempts at bank fraud, identity theft and other financial crime rampant, according to a report.
Security software firm Symantec's tenth Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) reveals that 86 per cent of all attacks target home internet users, with attackers increasingly using 'holes' in everyday computer applications to sneak in malicious code, like Trojan horses, onto the PC.
The report said that there has been an 81 per cent increase in consumer orientated phishing attacks, where a third party tries to trick consumers into handing over their login details for vital websites such banks, payment services and credit cards.
The scam usually involves an email being sent to customers asking them to either respond with their account details or click on a link that takes them to a duplicate (but not real) home page.
Symantec said that phishers are also attempting to bypass filtering technologies by creating multiple randomised messages and distributing those messages in a broad uncontrolled fashion.
During the first six months of 2006, 157,477 unique phishing messages were detected, marking an increase of 81 per cent over the previous period. At the same time, spam made up 54 per cent of all monitored e-mail traffic, a slight increase from 50 per cent the previous period.
Meanwhile, a new report from security company Kaspersky Lab said it has seen an increase in ransomware, where a criminal sends a program that encrypts the files on a victim PC and then blackmails the owner into paying to have the files decrypted.
Topic: Home PCs under increased attack (Read 653 times)