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The report also found that the education sector accounted for the majority of data breaches with 30 per cent, while the healthcare industry accounted for the least amount of breaches with only 15 per cent.

Murphy points to Norton anti-virus software to help businesses and consumers protect themselves against malicious attacks by saying it offers the utmost in security protection since it protects against vulnerabilities.

“As market share continues to grow, threats and attacks will also grow,” Murphy said. “Attackers will always find ways to send out threats and spam and it's our job as an IT risk management company to ensure that these vulnerabilities don't happen.”

The ISTR also found cyber criminals starting to move into the online gaming space to target victims for financial gain since in some instances, items can be purchased with real money directly from the game.

When it comes to future trends, Symantec predicts there will be a different philosophy when it comes to using the whitelist/blacklist feature.

“We'll move towards a whitelist philosophy where only the good things will run on the computer,” Murphy said. “This is because the threats are starting to outweigh the goods, so it would be much easier if things would run after a whitelist check is completed.”

In addition to security software offerings, Murphy also points to Symantec's channel for help.

“There's a tremendous amount of opportunities for our partners in this space,” Murphy said. “We rely on the channel to help with our services. Where the channel has value is that they already sell hardware and applications. We at Symantec will then work with them to help them with their expertise for service offerings and their performance.”

Published bi-annually, this period's ISTR covers the time frame spanning from Jan. 1, 2007 to Jun. 30, 2007. The ISTR is an extensive report with an emphasis on security data and malicious code threats and trends that Symantec sees based on information collected from over 40,000 sensors in more than 180 countries. The purpose of the report is to educate and raise awareness in order to help mitigate future security risks.

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