During the first quarter of 2005, IMlogic issued more than 15 priority alerts to enterprises and IMlogic Threat Center subscribers in response to the increasing frequency of reported IM threats. 75 new threats on public IM and peer-to-peer computing networks were discovered in the first three months of this year.
More than 50 percent of the incidents reported to the Threat Center during the first quarter of 2005 involved attacks at workplaces.
Only 11 percent of the incidents tracked by the Threat Center involved attacks on known vulnerabilities on IM applications.
The group said that 82 percent of the incidents reported to it involved IM virus or worm propagation, while 14 percent dealt with IM file transfer hijacking.
The Bropia, Kelvir and Serflog worms were found to be the three most frequently detected IM infections at workplaces.
The report released today by the IMlogic Threat Center provides complete data, analysis and discussion of key trends for the first three months of 2005.
More than 50 percent of externally reported incidents to the IMlogic Threat Center in Q1 2005 were attributed to enterprises and small businesses utilizing popular IM applications such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Windows Messenger, and Yahoo!
The report highlights the increase in targeted IM attacks on corporate environments and the need for both enterprises and small businesses to prepare and defend against emerging IM threats.
Trend analysis provided in the IMlogic Threat Center Q1 2005 report suggests that IM-borne attacks will continue to increase as hackers capitalize on the growing popularity of IM in both consumer and corporate environments.
“The trends identified in our report will continue as IM becomes the new target for more sophisticated attacks aimed at disrupting Internet security,” said IMlogic Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Products Jon Sakoda.
The Q1 2005 IM Security Threat Report is available free of charge by visiting the company’s Web site at www.imlogic.com/online/Q105_IMThreatReport.asp.
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