ScanSafe, the pioneer in managed Web security services, today announced that one out of every four security threats targeting its customers last week had the goal of financial data theft, including a 410 percent increase in information theft attacks over the 48 hours prior to the Easter weekend. With attackers apparently hoping users would let their guards down leading up to the holiday weekend, these attacks consisted of a bizarre mix of new threats combined with older malware resurgence. These incidents involved key logging, screen captures and site monitoring, underscoring a growing trend of increasing intelligence in malware that result in new traffic patterns for security.

“The rapid increase has been dramatic, but also highly unusual in longevity and the mix of malware included,” said John Edwards, ScanSafe’s CTO. “Despite the fact that some of this code is almost a year old, it’s still coming back to bite those organizations that haven’t implemented appropriate protection the first time around. Clearly, if 10 percent of our customers were potential targets, it’s virtually guaranteed that many other organisations have been breached and have had personal data stolen. Attackers are clearly looking for weak spots in a company’s defences and targeting the quiet holiday period.”

The latent level of malware targeting financial information has been gradually increasing over the last two months. However, the week leading up to the Easter holiday saw the highest rise we have ever seen. This is unusual, not just because of the increase, but rather due to what caused the increase. Traditionally, surges of activity are based on one threat—such as a worm or virus—during a major outbreak; this rise is quite different, and has come about in two ways: 45% are large resurgences of old malware (e.g. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Agent.eo, a form of malware originally discovered in June 2005), the other 55% are rapidly emerging threats that had a big impact, but only for a few days (e.g. Trojan-Spy.HTML.Bankfraud.ot).

“The fact that so many enterprises still haven’t implemented protection, despite security being a priority, highlights the time resource-constrained IT departments require to protect against malware—even malware that is months old,” Edwards continued. “Fortunately, our customers understand this, and through a managed service, they are able to leverage our constant vigilance against both old and new threats.”

ScanSafe is the only company to deliver a completely managed Web security solution, so its unique position “in the cloud” allows the company to identify trends in malware traffic that would be impossible for other organisations to detect. This position also allows ScanSafe to stop these Web-borne attacks for more than 900 global enterprise customers. Unlike “honey pot” networks, ScanSafe’s Outbreak Intelligence™ heuristics tracks real traffic targeting real companies and provides the capability to dynamically identify threats based on unusual traffic features, with last week’s activity serving as an excellent example. A managed service like this is ideal for organisations that require security but do not have the resources to implement total protection.

ScanSafe will be at Infosecurity Europe from 25-27 April 2006 on Stand 380.

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About ScanSafe

ScanSafe pioneered managed Web security and is the market leader, currently processing more than three billion Web requests each month. Operating at the Internet rather than at the server or desktop level, ScanSafe provides fully managed real-time virus protection and usage policy enforcement. ScanSafe's services actually block viruses and malware in real-time before they reach the enterprise network by utilizing both heuristic and signature-based technology. This level of protection goes far beyond simplistic URL filtering, which can't scan content and instead relies on static URL databases that are only updated once problems have been identified.

Best-of-breed protection is guaranteed by ScanSafe’s multi-tier model that combines the power of industry-leading virus engines and categorizers with proprietary heuristics engine Outbreak Intelligence™ to eliminate threats before they reach customer networks.

ScanSafe services Enterprise customers and SMEs through its extensive network of channel partners and service providers. The company’s primary financier is Benchmark Capital, the leading global venture capital firm. For more information, please visit: http://www.scansafe.com.