Browsers are taking a lot of heat

Even if viruses are still the greatest Internet-based threat, the attacks against browsers are catching up at an ever increasing rate.

Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, has released a survey involving 500 organizations, which have pointed out the most frequently-encountered types of security problems.

By centralizing the answers, CompTIA has pointed out that 56.6% of the participants have been subjected to attacks that exploited the Internet browsers' vulnerabilities (browser-based attacks), which is almost 20% higher than last year.

The browser-based-type attacks have the objective of taking over the PC or stealing confidential information, and are launched whenever a user visits a seemingly harmless Webpage, which in fact contains malicious codes.

One method to attract users to these sites is represented by the e-mail spam, and CompTIA has noticed that this type of phishing-based attack is becoming more and more popular.

Phishing levels are also going up, 25% of the din 500 organizations reporting to have had this problem, with respect to only 18% the year before.

The good news is that viruses and worms seem to be backing down, CompTIA reporting that only 2/3 of the organizations have had such problems, compared to the 68% percent recorded last year.

Another conclusion derived from the CompTIA report tells us that pharming and attacks that target different equipments are increasing, though, even if they're not such a major issue.