VoIP attacks to grow in 2007

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Voice over IP (VoIP) networks are expected to be heavily attacked by hackers next year as more businesses adopt the technology, security experts warned.

According to the latest report from email security company MessageLabs, network that use internet telephony will be under increasing attack and the company expects to see VoIP threats emerge as adoption of the technology increases and criminals target application vulnerabilities.

The company also said that spam levels skyrocketed over the last year and now account for 86.2 per cent of all email sent. This, it said was driven by an increase in sophistication of botnets and new targeted techniques.

It said that spam has overtaken viruses as the dominant menace over the last twelve months, a trend it predicted would continue through next year.

Mark Sunner, chief technology officer at MessageLabs said 2006 was the year that spammers took the security industry "by storm and showcased their new tactics and techniques for mass disruption."

"Now accounting for almost nine out of ten emails, spam has categorically shed its title of being a nuisance and is a perilous threat which all companies need to be protected against," he said. "The next year will certainly bring more targeted and sophisticated attacks as the bad guys continue to sharpen their tools.

The company said that it is now intercepting two corporate and industrial espionage attacks, as hackers begin to make targeted attacks against specific corporations and organisations.

Experts in the company said that 2007 would be the year "of true convergence, between spam, viruses and spyware" and instant messaging threats would become more aggressive as more networks open up to each other in 2007.

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