RSSIM Security Threats Jump Dramatically
By Ed Oswald | Published April 5, 2005, 1:42 PM
Instant messaging is increasingly becoming a target for spammers, phishers, and hackers according to a new report issued Tuesday by instant message security firm IMLogic. The report says that in the first quarter of this year alone, threats jumped an astounding 250 percent.
A little over eight of every ten reports received by the company had to do with viruses or worms, while 14 percent hijacked the file transfer capabilities and another 11 percent took advantage of client vulnerabilities.
"The trends identified in our report will continue as IM becomes the new target for more sophisticated attacks aimed at disrupting Internet security," IMlogic Chief Technology Officer Jon Sakoda said in a statement. The company suggests users check its IMLogic Threat Center for the latest on threats involving instant messaging.
The report found some 75 different unique threats were reported during the quarter, with some involving the compromising of personal information leading to indentity theft.
IMLogic said that the best method of defense is to ensure the latest versions of the instant messaging clients a customer uses are up-to-date, as well as being cautious as to what they download or click on especially if the identity of the sender is uknown to the user.
The company expects the amount of attacks will continue to increase as instant messaging becomes ever more part of peoples' daily routines, and pose new threats to the integrity of data across corportate networks.
The reason for all this is because people are idiots. People just have to click on every freaking thing that shows up.
1. Never talk to anyone via IM that you don't know.
2. Don't add anyone to your buddylist that you don't know.
Doing this will stop 99.5% of the crap that's happening.
Why are people such morons? People really need to learn a thing or two before they just go out on the web because "everyone else is doing it".
Computer illiterate people just kill me. What do you do if you can't read? You learn to read. What do you do if you can't run a computer properly? Learn to use it. Good grief, is it that hard folks?
Computers + idiot users = downfall of our society
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|I mostly agree with your post, though I may not feel quite as strongly as you do. I have never used IM other than the occasional online gaming chat, if even considered IM. Can't stand 'em. Not using IM will prevent 100.0% of the ¢rap that's happening :)
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|Pipewrench: I couldn't agree with you more. Up until the latest threats that recently popped up against IM clients. Your number one rule "1. Never talk to anyone via IM that you don't know." I would add to that (as you did imply) to not click on any link that anyone sends you. But what about now that virus writers have found methods to spoof or otherwise place a chat window from someone (or so you think) you know and have on your list? It is a different world and now you can't trust (as you shouldn't have been for at least the past year or more) email from friends to "click here." I feel sorry for people that are novice which are using computers at home. Those at work should turn to their IT department for training.
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|People get what they deserve...don't know how to use it, either ask for help or don't use it at all!!
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|Yet again, these problems affect things like MSN, AIM, ICQ... if you used a different client for these, you wouldn't experience any problems. I'm still using Miranda and I wasn't aware that any of this was even going on!
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|There are vulns in certain IM clients, yes, but this actually has more to do with configuration and user behavior than choice of software. Compare this situation to the fact that the Outlook email client had/has a ton of security flaws, but still, to this day, if you run whatever comes your way, it makes no difference whether or not you run Outlook.
If you configure your IM client to allow everyone to send you everything, and then you click and open everything that comes your way, no client on earth can save you from your own stupidity.
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|You are correct. I've often reflected that there is something about computers that seems to reduce the average person's I.Q. by about 60 points.
People get an email that says "Give us your credit card number", and they do as requested. Would they also give their number to someone who called them on their phone? (No doubt some of them would.)
Yeah, people are idiots. All I need for confirmation of this is to look in my (and my wife's) inbox to see how many of those damned email chain letters people forward.
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