Symantec launched the ‘Norton online cybercrime index’ at an event in London on 16 February 2011. The index tracks the level of fraud, identity theft, malware and spam around the world and warns users about the most popular tactics employed by cybercriminals on a daily basis.
Laura Garcia, vice president of product management at Norton, explained that cybercriminals look at what’s happening around the world and what people search for, and exploit it.
The cybercrime index tracks which news stories or events hackers use to attack users, Garcia said.
As an example, Garcia highligted the Soccer World Cup held in South Africa last year which was used as a popular way to scam users.
Many scam websites falsely advertised tickets for World Cup games to obtain the personal data of users, Garcia said.
To track this kind of activity from cybercriminals and warn users about it Norton has released their freely available online Cybercrime Index. Garcia explained that Norton goes through a few basic steps to build the index.
Data is collected from Symantec’s own global intelligence network and two third party sources. These sources are id:analytics and the Dataloss DB Open Security Foundation.
An algorithm which Symantec said is endorsed by the University of Texas then processes the information before it is analysed by experts and distributed.
According to Garcia the index is actually an aggregate of four different indices: Fraud, identity theft, malware, and spam.
She demonstrated how the data about the indices may be queried individually, showing the current top news for the particular index, giving advice on how to avoid becoming a victim, and offering insights into the trend.
The service is available from desktop web browsers, mobile browsers, and other mobile platforms such as Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 7.
Norton Cybercrime Index << Comments and views
Jan Vermeulen is a guest of Symantec in London
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