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Businesses used to attack consumers

Businesses are unwittingly exposing their own customers to online threats and the risk of falling victim to cyber crime, the IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force 2008 Trend & Risk Report has said.

The report states that 2008 saw the biggest number of vulnerabilities discovered as a 13 per cent increase over 2007 was recorded with legitimate business sites being roped in to attack consumers.

According to Kris Lamb, senior operations manager for X-Force Research and Development for IBM, businesses are targeted by crooks because their systems are easy targets.

"The purpose of these automated attacks is to deceive and redirect web surfers to web browser exploit toolkits," he said. "This is one of the oldest forms of mass attack still in existence today.

"It is staggering that we still see SQL injection attacks in widespread use without adequate patching almost ten years after they were first disclosed."

According to IBM, pre-emptive internet security measures and layered security can be used to protect consumer data.

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