Report: IM Attacks Hit Record Levels

Instant messaging security firm IMLogic said on Monday that attacks on IM networks increased to record levels, multiplying by fourteen times through the first three quarters of this year.

"Over the past three months the nature of the IM threat has continued to evolve with increasing levels of sophistication and rates of infection demonstrated by IM worms and viruses," IMlogic CTO Jon Sakoda said.

The report concluded that MSN Messenger has been the recipient of the lion's share of attacks, accounting for 62 percent of reported incidents. 31 percent targeted the AIM client, and another seven percent were aimed at Yahoo! Messenger users.

By type of attack, 87 percent were worm-based, 12 percent hijacked file transfer to deliver viruses, and one percent utilized system vulnerabilities. Altogether, 713 different threats have been reported for IM and P2P applications.

IMLogic cautioned users of AIM and Yahoo from becoming complacent simply because MSN is the target of most attacks.

"While the majority of IM threat outbreaks continue to occur on a single network, during the third quarter of 2005 IM virus writers and hackers continue to increase the sophistication of their attacks," the report says.