Cyber attacks doubled in 2011: HP

Cyber attacks have doubled in 2011; and enterprises and governments are faced with new challenges in assessing and remediating cyber security risks due to the highly organized attacks in retaliation by hacktivist groups, said a report, '2011 Top Cyber Security Risks Report' by HP.

The report indicated that hacker motivations are continuously changing due to the growing presence of hacktivist groups, such as Anonymous and LulzSec. In addition to changing motivation, the report has identified advances in attack techniques and it has led to the increase in security breaches.

The company said that to combat changing security risks it offers the HP Security Intelligence and Risk Management (SIRM) platform. HP SIRM delivers visibility across traditional, mobile and cloud environments enabling enterprises to apply adaptive security defenses based on specific organizational risk.

Report Highlights

* A measurement by HP TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) said that attacks are doubled in 2011 although vulnerability reports have declined

* Nearly 24 percent of new vulnerabilities disclosed in commercial applications in 2011 have a severity rating of 8 to 10

* Roughly 36 percent of all vulnerabilities are in commercial web applications

* Approximately 86 percent of web applications are vulnerable to an injection attack