Symantec Internet Security Threat Report Volume XIV

With the rapidly changing threat landscape it’s hard to stay on top of the emerging trends in attacks and malicious code activity.

The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) is the product of a 600-strong security response team and the cumulative knowledge of the Symantec™ Global Intelligence Network, a comprehensive security intelligence network with more than 240,000 attack sensors in 200+ countries.

Providing a twelve month update, the ISTR covers every aspect of internet threats from network-based attacks, known vulnerabilities, malicious code, phishing and spam. No aspect of internet security threats is left untouched, unexplored or unexplained.

The ISTR is more than just knowledge, it's also an invaluable source of objective advice. You will also find Symantec best practices and trend information. Use it to your full advantage to improve the way you develop your plans, quantify your budget and support your proposals - or use it to help evaluate and refine those submitted to you.

Volume XIV Highlights

A significant spike in new malicious code threats occurred during 2008. Symantec created 1,656,227 new malicious code signatures during this time period. This is a 265 percent increase over 2007, when 624,267 new malicious code signatures were added. This means that of all the malicious code signatures created by Symantec, more than 60 percent of that total was created in 2008. The explosive growth can be attributed to the professionalism of malicious code development, supporting the demand for goods and services that facilitate online fraud.

Malicious code that exposes confidential information is a valued asset in the underground economy. Advertisements seeking malicious code authors are often looking for a one-time development of specific code to create new variants of existing threats, rather than developing entirely new threats.

Variants of existing malicious code can be developed more easily and can therefore be posted for sale on the underground market much more quickly.

This highly informative report is available now to download