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Cyber crooks exploiting financial crisis

Cyber crooks are utilising every possible opportunity in the current financial crisis to expose internet users to online threats that could lead to ID theft, it has emerged.

The credit crisis has resulted in a number of mergers and acquisitions in recent months and cyber crooks are reportedly utilising such transitions to launch attacks, says Netcraft.

One such attack was carried out against US financial services company Citigroup, which "suffered a deluge of phishing attacks" after announcing last week that it was to acquire Wachovia Corporation.

"One motivation for these types of attack is the increased chance of success when potential victims have less familiarity with the genuine website that is being fraudulently mimicked," stated Netcraft.

Not only are the crooks using the current turmoil in the market to cause internet security issues for many, but they are also using hot topics in the news to attack users.

Last week online security expert Webroot warned that cyber crooks are now using search engine optimisation to appear on top of hot news searchers in order to increase their chances of netting victims.

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