Internet subscriptions continued to rise in Malta during 2006, with post and telecommunication lagging behind and recording the largest annual drops in second and third quarters of the year. However, the Maltese public’s preference to communicate through internet might have been marred as last year saw a record increase in junk e-mail and sophisticated online attacks from ever more organized cyber crooks.
According to computer security experts, it is estimated that around 90% of all e-mails sent in October were spam, with the volume of spam shooting up by 60% in the past two months.
In turn, most internet security watchers believe 2007 will be no brighter for the millions of consumers already struggling to keep up with new computer security threats, along with scams, according to The Washington Post.
Spam is not affecting email recipients alone, as network administrators have to deal with considerably more junk mail laden with images, which require roughly three times more storage space and Internet bandwidth for companies to process.
Additionally, Gadi Evron, a botnet expert believes that organized criminals would earn about $2 billion this year through phishing scams, which involve the use of spam and fake Web sites to trick computer users into disclosing financial and other personal data.
It has also been noted that criminal groups have shifted their activities from nights and weekends to weekday attacks, suggesting that online crime is evolving into a full-time profession for many, reported The Washington Post. Cuptertino, Calif.-based Internet security provider Symantec Corp. found that the incidence of phishing scams dropped significantly on Sundays and Mondays in the United States.
Amid these threats, 2006 also saw that of software security vulnerability, with Microsoft Corp., issuing software updates to fix 97 security holes which hackers could use to break into vulnerable machines without any action on the part of the user.
Read more about Malta's technology scene by visiting 2006: Technology in Malta.
See also:
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