The attackers seem to be pursuing a more financially rewarding
strategy, such as stealing financial and credit card information. The less-generalized
attacks are still taking place, but at a decreasing rate. While the less-generalized attacks
can still cause damage, they are mainly just irritating, time-consuming, and require a lot
ofwork-hours from the operational staff to carry out recovery and cleanup activities. The
more targeted attacks will not necessarily continue to keep the operational staff carrying
out such busy work, but the damage of these attacks is commonly much more devastating
to the company overall.
The ???Symantec Internet Security Threat Report??? (published in September 2006) confirmed
the increase of the targeted and profit-driven attacks by saying that attacks on
financial targets had increased by approximately 350 percent in the first half of 2006
over the preceding six-month period. Attacks on the home user declined by approximately
7 percent in that same period.
The hacker community is changing. Over the last two to three years, hackers??™ motivation
has changed from just the thrill of figuring out how to exploit vulnerabilities to figuring
out how to make revenue from their actions and getting paid for their skills.
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