CUPERTINO, Calif. - March 7, 2006 - Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today released its ninth volume of the Internet Security Threat Report .... The semiannual report, covering the six-month period from July 1, 2005 to Dec. 31, 2005, marks an increase in threats designed to facilitate cybercrime. While past attacks were designed to destroy data, today's attacks are increasingly designed to silently steal data for profit without doing noticeable damage that would alert a user to its presence. In the previous Internet Security Threat Report, Symantec cautioned that malicious code for profit was on the rise, and this trend continued during the second half of 2005. Malicious code threats that could reveal confidential information rose from 74 percent of the top 50 malicious code samples last period to 80 percent this period. ... The report also details the growing trend of attackers using bot networks, targeted attacks on Web applications and Web browsers, and modular malicious code. Based on this and data from previous reporting periods, Symantec expects to see more diverse and sophisticated threats used for cybercrime as well as an increase in the theft of confidential, financial, and personal information for financial gain.

• Average 9,163 infected systems IDed each day during this reporting period
• 1,402 DoS attacks per day, a 51 percent increase over the previous reporting period.
• 69% of vulnerabilities affected Web application technologies (15% increase) For the last half of reporting period, modular malicious code was 88% of the top 50 malicious code samples reported. (77% increase)

• Biggest jump in bot-infected computers, (37% growth, 24% over average increase)
• Largest increase in originating attacks; (153% growth, 72% over average).

• Overall increase with more focus on smaller, regional targets
• 7.92 million phishing attempts daily (39% increase)

• 1,895 new software vulnerabilities
• Largest total recorded number since 1998
• Ratings: 97% - moderately or highly severe, 79% - easy to exploit

• Windows 2000 Server with no patches (Patched Windows 2003 Web Edition and both unpatched and patched RedHat Enterprise Linux 3 were not compromised).
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional(same system with all patches, SuSE Linux 9 Desktop were not compromised.)

• Average 6.8 days between announcement and release of exploit code, (up from 6 days)
• Average 49 days between disclosure of vulnerability and release of a vendor-supplied patch. (Thus users are susceptible to attack for 42 days)

• Small increase(10,992 versus previous 10,866).
• Decline in category 3 and 4 threats (moderate and extremely serious)
• Increase in category 1 and 2 threats (low and very low).
• New Win32 virus and worm families also decreased (-39%, 104, previously 170)