Many firms 'unaware of sophisticated phishing mechanics'

2009-10-12

Many companies are now aware of how traditional phishing scams work, but they are not so at home with the more sophisticated attacks, it has been claimed.

Over a quarter of a million email accounts on the biggest webmail services may now be at risk from cybercriminals after thousands of passwords belonging to AOL, Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! users were placed online.

As so many people use the same password for all online accounts, cybercriminals using the passwords posted on the internet to access many other applications is "a big concern", said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos.

"The technology needs to be in place to stop these things, but you also need to be vigilant," the expert commented.

She advocated the use of different passwords for the varying accounts people have on the internet and changing these regularly is beneficial.

A total of 3.6 million illegal acts were carried out by cybercriminals last year, meaning that there was more than one every ten seconds.

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