Hackers Target Nearly 50% of German Internet Users

As per a research conducted by Forsa (a German research company) for Bitkom (the IT business association), almost 50% of Internet users in Germany have been targeted by cyber criminals. The research noticed 11% increase in cyber criminals' activities over the past one-year, with registered reports of 38,000 cases in the country.

Malware and PC viruses are still the ideal attack tactics for cyber criminals who infected 38% of web users by these two types of malicious software.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer, Forsa, said - the report recorded a rise in cyber crime mainly because of immense efforts by criminal groups which use Trojan-enabled phishing assaults, as per the reports by INFO SECURITY on October 12, 2009. He also said that the trend suggested observations made by Finjan.

As per Ben-Itzhak, the researchers reported in Finjan's Cybercrime Intelligence Report that Internet thieves are becoming shrewd in covering their tactics to remain unnoticed for a long period of time, as per the reports by INFO SECURITY on October 12, 2009.

Finjan researchers have also found that hackers are employing Trojans like the URLzone bank Trojan and new anti-fraud detection methods to evade identification by banks as well as their customers.

Ben-Itzhak has claimed that the figures of Bitkom verify their findings that the issue of online cyber crime has become a menace and touched high levels, with improving nasty skills of hackers who operate these scams.

In a survey conducted last year (2008), 4 Million people in Germany did not have computer security. Though 83% of survey participants had a virus security program on their system, just 67% were using a firewall. In addition, 28% of users had used an encryption program. 7% of surveyed users had no security mechanisms at all.

To evade attacks of cyber criminals, online security experts advise that that firms should evaluate and strengthens their IT safety systems against the rising cyber crime in the country. Users should make sure that their safety systems are both multi-layered and updated.