Tuesday, October 13, 2009

APWG eCrime Summit in Tacoma



eCrime is the internationally focused topic of discussion next week in Tacoma and the discussion has never been more timely. (Check out Mount Rainier in the background of the graphic). Here is a few words from a recent Anti Phishing Work Group report that came across the Reuters news network.

I found it timely as I received to phishing emails today in my inbox. One from a poorly formatted "B a n k of America" site and one from an online payment company. Both bogus of course.

LOS ALTOS, Calif. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(Business Wire)--
The APWG`s latest Phishing Activity Trends Report illustrates electronic crime`s innovation and apparently unchecked ambition with new records being reached for such felonious instrumentation as rogue anti-virus software, phishing websites
and crimeware designed to target financial institutions` customers.

The APWG H1, 2009 report found that the numbers of detected rogue anti-malware programs, fake security software that actually infects computers to animate assorted electronic crimes, grew 585 percent between January and the end of June 2009.


Some of the more interesting data points from the report.

Highlights of the H1, 2009 Phishing Activity Trends Report include:

● Unique phishing reports submitted to APWG recorded a high of 37,165 in May, around 7 per cent higher than last year`s high of 34,758 in October.

●The number of unique phishing websites detected in June rose to 49,084, the highest recorded since April, 2007`s record of 55,643.

● The number of banking trojan/password-stealing crimeware infections detected increased during more than 186 percent between Q4, 2008 and Q2, 2009.

● The total number of infected computers rose more than 66 percent between Q4 2008 and the end of the half, 2009 to 11,937,944 - now more than 54 percent of the total sample of scanned computers.

● Payment Services became phishing`s most targeted sector, displacing Financial Services in Q1 & Q2.


So with all this going on, what are we going to do about it. How can we combat it or even keep it in check. These important discussions are going to take place in a city that is active in industry supporting data integrity and information assurance and educational institutions doing research and education to promote cyber security awareness and defense.

Tacoma

As the report concludes.
Those members and researchers from around the world will be considering the results of the H1, 2009 report at the eCrime Congress | Tacoma on Oct. 19-21, a three-day event that combines the APWG`s General Members` Meeting (member-restricted) on the 19th and the eCrime Researchers Summit on the 20th and 21st, (open to the public) a peer-reviewed research conference on electronic crime that the APWG holds annually in conjunctions with the IEEE Standards Association.


Note that there is an open to the public segment on the 20th and 21st.

Barbara Endicott-Popovski, one of the adjunct faculty at the Institute and the Director of the Center of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at the University of Washington will be on the panel and many of the Institute students and faculty will be in attendance.

Our friends at Internet Identity were an instrumental part of getting this conference here and putting it on.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the post! I think this will be a nice event, and as we recover economically, the South Puget Sound will be poised for growth in the IT security and technology sectors. The groundwork is being laid. -CR

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