Facebook and Twitter are hackers’ secret weapon as phishing attacks soar

In the realm of IT security, when organisations have their very business on the line, the instinct for most companies is to simply throw money and technology at the problem, upgrading technical systems at every opportunity to keep pace with emerging threats.

But ignoring the human element of cybercrime would be naïve, Kaspersky Lab’s David Emm argues. The Russian firm’s Senior Security Researcher was addressing the modern day malware landscape in a speech at the Royal Holloway University during Kaspersky’s Cyber Security for the Next Generation conference (below) last week; his words carrying added weight given the presence of the world’s brightest technological talents, competing in the finals of Kaspersky’s cyber-security research competition for students.

Emm urged the prodigies to create an industry that looks closely at how cyber-criminals target individuals if they want to curb hacking and reduce risk. A report from Kaspersky this week highlighted an alarming rise in phishing attacks with an average of 3,000 users being attacked in this manner every day in the UK; three times as many as were recorded during 2011-2012. Significantly, phishing attacks prey more heavily on weaknesses in the individual than in network infrastructure – the trend thus demonstrating the growing importance of our behaviour in the process of cyber-attacks.

SOURCE: itproportal.com