Internet security attacks increased by 50 percent in the first half of 2005, eventually reaching 237 million, reveals the Global Business Security Index developed by IBM and released today.
According to the document, the preferred targets of the attackers are the public sector and the governments that suffered 54 million incidents in the period under analysis. The industry is the second most targeted area by computer attacks, with 36 incidents recorded in the first six months of the year, followed by the health sector, which suffered 17 million attacks in six months.
The study also states that the ratio spam/ legitimate email decreased significantly between January and June. While in the first month of the year it stood at 83 percent, in June the level of messages from spam compared to the total volume of messages in circulation on the Internet, it was 67 percent.
Regarding attacks phishing the numbers are less encouraging and show that this practice continues to rise with 35 million documented attacks.
The most common purposes of phishing are money laundering and identity theft, increasingly carried out by experts, warns IBM.
The incidence of viruses also remains high. The report says that if in January one out of every 52 emails was infected with some type of malicious code, in June this relationship was email infected for every 28 in circulation.
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