A pair of retailers was hit with an inordinately large number of targeted malware attacks this month, according to security software vendor Symantec.
As eSecurity Planet reports, the attacks represent the next stage in online crime where more sophisticated and complex scams are perpetuated with data harvested from social networking sites and other publicly available data sites.
With more security threats looming in the near future, companies and consumers need to step up their games to keep their data and themselves safe from identity theft and other cybercrime.
Security software vendor Symantec’s MessageLabs Intelligence report for October found an alarming increase in so-called spear-phishing attacks in the retail industry as scam artists incessantly targeted small groups of employees and executives at a pair of top-tier retailers.
The report, which also found that one in 488 email sent in October was a phishing attack aimed at stealing either passwords, login credentials or other personal information, said that these coordinated phishing campaigns have surged from one or two cases a week just five years ago to more than 70 a day this month.