Web-based scams that profit off people’s bank accounts and trademarks last year grew bigger, more sophisticated and more lucrative.
New research shows consumers and e-bankers must navigate around an eightfold increase in the volume of scams designed at coaxing their financial details.
Meanwhile, the likelihood of micro firms becoming victim to cyber squatting is today greater than at any time since 2000, says a new report into the abuse of domain names.
The joint warnings coincide with a security firm’s decision to upgrade its corporate software to enable IT administrators to block end user access to the virtual world of Second Life.
Explaining the update, experts at Sophos said the growing use of Web 2.0 is redefining how users interact with the internet and thereby “creating new avenues for cyber criminals.”
Similarly, the WIPO, author of the report into cyber squatting, says the ‘expansion of the internet’ and ‘flourishing of e-commerce’ has created greater risks for trademark holders.
The use of software to automatically register expired domain names, the rise in the number of domain name dealers and the free registering of names during a trial period were to blame.
Alongside the use of ‘Whois’ privacy services, which allow registrations via a proxy registrant, these practices offer unparalleled opportunity for the “mass registration of domain names.”
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) added: “Such registrations are often anonymously undertaken on a serial basis without particular attention to third-party IP rights.”
Traditionally, the group’s dispute resolution service has dealt with ‘cyber squatting’ as the act of an individual registering a domain name to sell on the ‘squatted’ domain.
Nowadays, ‘domainers’ derive income from the large-scale automated registration of domain names, the WIPO said.
“Domain names used to be primarily specific identifiers of businesses and other Internet users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities for speculative gain,” said Francis Gurry, group deputy director-general.
“The rate at which domain names change hands and the difficulty to track such mass automated registrations challenge trademark owners in their pursuit of cyber squatters.”
Fresh figures from the group reveal the number of filed disputes in 2006 rose 25% compared with the year before, with around 80% of cases concluding with the transfer of the domain name to the complainant.
For trademark holders there was no room for complacency however, Gurry hinted, as domain names were becoming “moving targets” – a development policy makers he says should address.
The recommendation comes as payment giant Apacs reports that fraudsters increased their profits from e-banking 44% in 2006, pocketing £33.5million.
The group said the increase was driven by a staggering increase in phishing incidents, increasingly enabled via spoof websites, which leapt from 1,713 in 2005 to 14,156 last year.
In a caution to job seekers, it was reported that recruitment adverts posted by fraudsters have risen from fewer than ten a month three years ago to 100 or more a month.
Mar 19, 2007
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