Users simply like instant messengers and since the companies that built them are continuously improving them on a monthly basis, some of these applications are pretty powerful. However, having such an impressive popularity doesn't necessarily mean that they're 100 percent secure because, according to new findings, instant messengers may represent one of the favorite targets for today's hackers. Akonix Systems released an interesting research which revealed that the malicious attempts over instant messenger have almost tripled in April.

"With this month's spike in IM attacks, hackers are continuing to penetrate companies as they roll out instant messaging and unified communications platforms for the new year," said Don Montgomery, VP of marketing at Akonix. "Enterprises need to realize that implementing new communication and collaboration tools increases the risk of attack as each new application becomes a new vector for infection."

What's worse is that no less than 21 attacks which targeted instant messaging solutions were new, which means some security solutions may encounter difficulties when trying to deal with them. Akonix explains that a 162 percent increase from March has been recorded, which underlines, once again, the need for better security measures.

Among the newly born IM threats, ArcServe, Imspread and QVOD have all been spotted on the web launching attacks over instant messaging technologies. However, the most popular threats are IRCBot and Tiotua which, according to Akonix, could be identified in about three variants each.

Beside instant messengers, the P2P networks have also been attacked by new threats. According to the same source, the attacks over the P2P services grew up with 13 percent.

All these stats do nothing than to underline the need for more powerful and advanced security techniques and even if chatting on the web through an instant messenger may sound like a piece of cake, it could easily turn into a tragedy if somebody managed to break into your computer.