Symantec’s Internet Security Report, published on September 25, 2006, tells the sad tale of increased security threats. It is no surprise that Internet Explorer receives the most threats. It is the most widely used browser. But interestingly, Mozilla Firefox (my preferred browser because of the extensions) had more vulnerabilities (47) than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (38). This dispels the notion that Firefox is a more secure browser. However, the window of vulnerability is only 1 day for Firefox compared to 9 days for IE. Phishing, the use of disguised emails to lure persons to disclose passwords & credit card info, continues to be a major threat.
Other findings:
Unique phishing emails are up 81%
The most heavily phished sector was financial services
Spam accounted for 54% of all monitored email
Most common spam: health services & products
58% of all worldwide spam originates in the US
8 of the top 10 security risks were adware programs
Top attack target are Home users (86%) & Financial services (14%)
The US receives the most DOS (Denial of Service) attacks worldwide (54%). China, in second, accounts for only 12% of DOS attack
