Internet: security alarm, + 125% by unknown software attacks – AGI – Agenzia Journalistic Italy

Rome – The digital world becomes a less safe place: in 2015 the number of cyber attacks has increased over last year and towards the companies to individual users, as much as 125% for those that exploit software for which there are still no countermeasures. And ‘what emerges from the Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), the study just released by Symantec. “This year were detected 54 new zero-day attacks that exploit software not yet known and for which there are no solutions, an increase of 125% compared to the previous,” explains Antonio Forzieri year, security expert Norton and Symantec. “This is certainly the data that has left more amazed us. We were hoping for an improvement on the previous two years.”

“Six of the new zero-day were detected in Italy,” he stressed. The report also shows that in the last year have been identified nine ‘mega-breaches that have caused the loss of 500 million personal data. Italy, globally, is ranked thirteenth place by the number of threats and salt in a position relative to 2014. For alarming are mainly 336 thousand cases of ransware attacks, malware that restrict access to the infected device that place Italy in sixth place in the global piabno.

in 2015, the world has also developed a more aggressive type of software ‘bad, the crypto-ransomware which account for 35% of attacks. It is an attack that encrypts the digital content of a victim and held them hostage until a ransom is not paid. This year the ransomware has spread from PCs, smartphones, Mac and Linux systems. “We realized – says Antonio Forzieri – that cyber attacks are taken by individual users but also large companies, and that is in sharp increase in the phenomenon of ransomware and the subsequent payment of the sums required. We do not recommend this behavior because it does nothing but consolidate cybercrime. “

According to the Symantec report targeted attacks are concentrated 57.4% on larger companies (over 1500 employees), while both SMEs that midsized businesses make record 25%. “The Italian investment volume for protection against cyber attacks. He concludes Forzieri – it is still insufficient compared to that of other countries. In Italy we talk about an investment of around 150 million euro against the British who instead is about £ 2 billion. “

also in 2015 there was the resumption of many scams that have proved successful in the past. The difference is that they are sent fake warning messages to devices such as smartphones, by driving traffic to the call center managed by the authors of the scams in order to induce them to buy unnecessary services. “The growing number of companies that choose not to disclose details of critical importance after a violation is a particularly negative trend,” said Symantec Bitteleri country manager in Italy.

“Transparency is essential for safety . Keeping secret the overall impact of an attack, it becomes more difficult to assess the risk and improve the security situation to prevent future attacks. ” (AGI)