Financially-motivated web threats 'Key Challenge' for Middle East enterprises

According to data collected by Trend Micro, infection volumes nearly quadrupled between September and November last year, with a particular emphasis on attacking online shoppers in the holiday season.

Online commerce sites, such as auction site eBay, and financial institutions in particular attracted a high volume of so-called 'Phishing' attacks, where criminals attempt to steal proprietary and financial information.

Raimund Genes, Chief Technology Officer of Anti-Malware at Trend Micro, will outline the findings of the Trend Micro Threat Report and 2008 Forecast at the IDC CIO Summit, the major gathering of over 100 senior technology leaders that takes place in Dubai this week.

'One of the major challenges that is emerging is that high-profile web sites - including social networking sites, banking sites, search engines and blogs - are growing as sought-after attack vectors for criminals looking to take information for the purposes of financial gain and commit identity theft. An additional challenge is that the number of compromised legitimate sites, which have been breached by hackers, is beginning to outnumber the range of malicious sites specifically-created by criminals. Moving forward, companies in the Middle East will need to ensure that the public face of their website is fully protected, both for their own security and for the protection of the public'

said Justin Doo, Managing Director, Trend Micro, Middle East.

Unmanaged devices, such as smart phones, mp3 players, digital frames, thumb drives, and gaming stations, are increasingly being used to infiltrate companies' security borders, exploiting their capabilities for storage, computing, and Wi-Fi.

Trend Micro will address IT and security professionals at the IDC CIO Summit on the 17th March 2008 at the Grand Hyatt, Dubai.