In 2008, the dissemination of harmful software such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and the like grew by 265% on a global scale. More than 60% of currently known threats were detected during the past year.

Much more today than in the past, cyber criminals are in the Web business with the intent to make money. Illegally, of course. The practice of phishing has been experiencing a further boom. According to Symantec’s ‘Internet Security Threat Report’ for 2008, there have been more than 55,000 phishing hosts discovered, i.e. computers that host fraudulent sites, an increase of 66% compared to 2007. There is even greater increase of activity related to spam, with an increase from 119.6 billion messages in 2007 to 349.6 billion in 2008.

Cyber crime is very profitable. The area worst hit is the financial services, at 76% of detected attacks. There is a thriving black market in the Internet where one can find, at bargain prices, thousands of sensitive data, the most popular of which is information related to credit cards (a rise from 11% in 2007 to 32% in 2008).

The United States is the leading origin of cyber crime, with 25% of cyber attacks that occurred in 2008 coming from the US. 43% of all computers that host phishing sites discovered in 2008 are located in the United States. Brazil increased in cyber crime incidence from eighth to fifth place, Turkey from fifteenth to ninth place, and Poland from twelfth to tenth place.

The underground economy of the Web also does not seem to have suffered because of the global economic crisis. In spite of the financial meltdown, black market prices remained constant over the Net in 2008.

Via symantec