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UK bucks trend in cybercrime

Date: April 28, 2008
Source: Precisionmarketing.co.uk
By: Sara Kimberley

Cybercrime in the UK has dropped in the first quarter of 2008 by nearly 2 per cent, compared to the same period last year, a new report reveals.

While studies show an increase in Web-based threats globally compared to 2007, the UK only hosts 1.1 per cent of Web-based malware, compared to 3 per cent in the same period last year.

However, the Security Threat Report by IT security and control firm Sophos shows a new infected website is found every five seconds, compared to with one every 14 seconds last year.

The US in particular has experienced unprecedented growth, from hosting less than 25 per cent of all infected pages overall in 2007, to almost half in the first three months of 2008.

China has demonstrated the biggest drop, from hosting more than half of all the infected pages in 2007, to just under a third in the first quarter of 2008.

The report reveals that data leakage continues to be a major concern for organisations. Several high profile cases of businesses losing sensitive customer information were reported during the first three months of 2008.

The largest reported data breach this year involved the credit card numbers of more than four million customers being stolen from US supermarket chain Hannaford Bros. The data, taken by cyber criminals using malware installed on servers at the chain’s branches, have already been used in approximately 1,800 fraud cases.


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