'2008 was boom year for hi-tech criminals'

London, Dec 28 (ANI): If 2007 witnessed rise in hi-tech criminals, then 2008 was the year they started materializing their goals, say experts.

"The underground economy is flourishing," said Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer at security company Websense.

"They are not just more organised," said Mr Hubbard, "they are co-operating more and showing more business savvy in how they monetise what they do."

Firms combating the rising tide of computer crime have gathered statistics, which show how busy professional cyber thieves have been over the last twelve months, reports the BBC.

Sophos said it was now seeing more than 20,000 new malicious programs every day.

Criminal gangs produce so many viruses mainly for two main reasons. Firstly, many variants of essentially the same malicious program can cause problems for anti-virus software that can only reliably defend against threats it is aware of.

Secondly, in the past security firms have tended to focus on the big outbreaks. By staging a series of small outbreaks the criminals hope to go unnoticed while their family of viruses racks up victims.

Spammers use tempting subjects to trick people into opening messages. (ANI)