A new report, by Check Point Software (News - Alert) Technologies Ltd, called “The Impact of Cybercrime on Businesses” reveals that 65 percent of targeted attacks on organizations are driven by financial fraud. The report shows that, on average, businesses report  66 new attack attempts per week and successful incidents result in loss of trade secrets, intellectual property and sensitive information that can be worth anywhere between $100,000 to $300,000. The top security threat to organizations was identified as Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.

Driven by either financial gain, by disrupting business operations, data theft or political reasons, cybercriminals use malware, bots and other sophisticated ways. Targeting multiple sites and organizations increases the success rate of an attack. The survey showed that SQL injections were the most serious attacks with a third of the respondents reporting botnet infections, APTs and DoS attacks in the last two years.

According to Check Point Software Technologies security evangelist and researcher, Tomer Teller, “Cybercriminals are no longer isolated amateurs. They belong to well-structured organizations, often employing highly-skilled hackers to execute targeted attacks, many of whom receive significant amounts of money. With bot toolkits going for a mere $500, this gives people the insight into how big the problem has become and the importance of implementing preemptive protections to safeguard critical assets.” Mr. Teller added that the surge of Web 2.0, where corporate and enterprises are using mobile computing, has opened more channels of communication, which in turn means more vulnerable entry points which is responsible for the increase in the rate of cybercrime.

Despite the rising rates of Internet crime, the good news is that security awareness has also gone up. Rising levels of concern about targeted attacks has resulted in companies taking security precautions and security training to mitigate attack risks. By first identifying critical data and assets, it is then possible to enforce multi-layered threat prevention. Check Point Software Technologies Ltd helps enterprises by securing their Internet data and protection against all types of online threats.