Cyveillance reports that United States-based Web surfers are more at risk to malware attacks and online identity theft schemes than citizens from other countries, with more than 63 percent of malware distributed on U.S.-based Web sites. In addition more than 2 million URLs world-wide distributed malicious downloads to site visitors.

Cyveillance also determined that despite the rate of traditional phishing attacks leveling off, there was a 20% increase in the aggregate quantity of brands targeted, indicating that phishers continue to change targets. Since 2005 over 1,400 companies have been attacked.

Using intelligence collected through its comprehensive Internet monitoring, Cyveillance found that of the 284 brands targeted by phishing attacks for the first time during the second calendar quarter of 2007, more than 80 percent were U.S.-based financial institutions. These figures draw a distinct parallel to the total number of compromised credit cards found online, of which more than 80 percent were supplied by US issuers.

Malware distribution via the Web has evolved into a specialized “fraud chain” comprised of malware hosting sites, distribution sites and drop sites. China and the United States host 60 percent of sites where malware binaries are stored, while 63% of the sites being used to attract and distribute malware are hosted in the United States. The United States also hosts over 50 percent of the world’s malware drop sites, which collect information from infected computers that use keyloggers, screen scrapers and other approaches to passively harvest sensitive personal information.

“Through comprehensive Internet monitoring, our cyber intelligence analysts have seen a significant quarter over quarter increase in malicious online risks targeting U.S. citizens,” said Panos Anastassiadis, CEO of Cyveillance. “As Internet utilization rates continue to rise, the risks to organizations and consumers for data and identity theft grow exponentially. Understanding where these threats are coming from and who they are most likely to target goes a long way in proactively neutralizing these risks.”

The high Internet utilization rates and strong economies in western countries have created a target rich environment for cyber criminals around the world. Looking forward to the second half of 2007, Cyveillance expects to see continued growth of cyber criminals using these highly successful formulas for targeting and stealing personal and financial data from lucrative western nations such as the United States.