By Prince Osuagwu
New reports from Systems security providers, Symantec Corp says that the number of daily targeted attacks in the later part of the year, has increased four-fold compared to January this year. It said that on average, 94 targeted attacks were blocked each day during the month of November.

The report further revealed that in the U.S. at least one attack was being blocked each day, and that one in 389 users may be the recipient of such an attack.  The report however said that the development was worrisome as it ran in contrast with Japan where at least one attack is blocked nearly every nine days, and may only be sent to one in 520 individuals.

Senior intelligence analyst at Symantec, Mr. Paul Wood stated that, the aim of these targeted attacks was to establish persistent access to the targeted organization’s network with the aim of providing remote access to confidential data. According to him, they have the potential to cause serious damage to an organization and in the long term represent a significant threat against the economic prosperity of many countries.

“Targeted attacks are designed to gather intelligence, steal confidential information or trade secrets, and in the case of attacks like Stuxnet, disrupt operations or even destroy critical infrastructure,” he disclosed.
The report stated that, the public sector has been identified as the most frequently targeted industry during 2011, with approximately 20.5 targeted attacks blocked each day.

The chemical & pharmaceutical industry was second highest ranked, with 18.6 blocked each day. In this latter case, many of these attacks surfaced later in the year, and fit into the profile described in the Nitro[1] attacks. This is also the case for the manufacturing sector, which was placed third most-targeted with approximately 13.6 attacks blocked each day.

“It is important to remember that without strong social engineering, or ‘head-hacking,’ even the most technically sophisticated attacks are unlikely to succeed. Many attacks include elements of social engineering and are based on information we make available ourselves through social networking and social media sites.

Once the attackers are able to understand our interests or hobbies, with whom we socialize and who else may be in our networks; they are often able to construct more believable and convincing attacks against us,” Wood stated.

Symantec also observed that, while targeted attacks are on the increase, the global spam rate has now reached its lowest level in three years. The effect of spam volumes three years ago was very dramatic and spam accounted for 68.0% of global emails. Recently the decline has been much slower, but spammers have also adapted to using more targeted approaches and exploiting social media as alternatives to email.