The bank is the number one target for hackers

According to US security firm Counterpane and e-mail management company MessageLabs, financial units suffered nearly 40% of Trojan attacks last year, while production facilities were 22% .

" Hackers are using a lot of misguided tricks to overcome the strongest authentication mechanisms ," said Alex Shipp, an analyst at MessageLabs. " New Trojan programs do not trick users into revealing their passwords. They will wait until the victim performs normal transactions and quietly withdraw money from their account ."

Meanwhile, spyware's favorite target is pharmaceutical organizations. More than 50% of spyware targets this department, followed by insurance.

Counterpane also described in detail the current popular attack methods. One of the most effective tricks is installing a virus into a Word file with the content of a job application and sending it to some company. This type of attack was described by former hacker Kevin Mitnick in his Art of Deception.