Hackers step up their attacks against small businesses: Symantec

Hackers are increasing their attacks on smaller enterprises with fewer than 250 employees, Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) announced in its June 2012 Symantec Intelligence Report (ISTR).

The report shows that 36% of all targeted attacks (58 per day) during the last six months were directed at businesses with 250 or fewer employees. As reported in Symantec’s recent ISTR, this figure doubled from 18% at the end of December 2011.

“During the first half of [2012], the total number of daily targeted attacks continued to increase at a minimum rate of 24%, with an average of 151 targeted attacks being blocked each day during May and June.”

Large enterprises consisting of more than 2,500 employees are still receiving the greatest number of attacks, with an average of 69 being blocked daily.

“There appears to be a direct correlation between the rise in attacks against smaller businesses and a drop in attacks against larger ones,” said Paul Wood, cyber security intelligence manager of Symantec. “It almost seems attackers are diverting their resources directly from the one group to the other.”

The U.S. defence industry — a sub-category of the public sector — has been the targeted industry of choice in the first half of 2012, with an average of 7.3 attacks per day.

The chemical/pharmaceutical and manufacturing sectors maintain the number two and three spots.

“These targets have clearly received a smaller percentage of overall attention than in 2011, but the chemical/pharmaceutical sector is still hit by 1 in every 5 targeted attacks, while manufacturing still accounts for almost 10% of all targeted attacks.”