If money is the root of all evil, then hackers are evil incarnate. According to a security intelligence firm, more than half the cyber-attacks conducted in 2004 were carried out by criminals interested in only one thing: money.

iDefense, a Reston, Va.-based supplier of security intelligence to both corporations and government agencies, delved into its private database of more than 100,000 malicious code attacks to publish analytical findings publicly for the first time, said Ken Dunham, the company's director of research.

Identity theft continues to be consumers' top complaint, and ID theft-related complaints are on the rise. Consumers filed 246,570 total identity theft-related complaints in 2004, up from 215,093 in 2003, according to government statistics released in February by the Federal Trade Commission.

Bank-related identity theft comprised 18 percent of all ID theft complaints.

Over the years, banks have taken numerous steps to increase personal security in the ATM lobby. First, to get in, you need to swipe a card or have someone hold the door for you.

Then, in a canny move designed to cut down on extraneous traffic, the banks have removed all of the ink from the courtesy pens attached to the fixtures. Finally, they've installed rearview mirrors on the ATMs to give you a moment's warning that you're about to be robbed.

An article at CNN discusses the how Phishers have moved beyond the typical email scam.

Last month, Secunia (Danish security firm) documented a case where a phisher somehow modified a windows host file so that when you type in the correct url in the address, it redirects you to the phisher site.

Worms and spyware are being built for the purpose of phishing, and it is also believed that phishers are attempting to compromise domain name servers.

If one of these go down millions could lose their security instantly, even if they themselves have maintened the security of their computers.

Online auctioneer eBay, a prime target for phishing schemes, has been used as an unwitting accomplice. A flaw in eBay's server configuration paves the way for spoofing attacks when a specially crafted URL, which is a valid eBay link, is used to redirect users to a malicious Web site.

eBay was made aware of the issue several days ago, but has not yet corrected the problem, which can be used to exploit the trust relationship between eBay and its users.

Opera Software ASA on Friday released the second beta version of the next release of its desktop browser, which includes a new anti-spoofing feature.

The latest beta, available for download through the Opera site, displays security information inside the address bar that can help the user determine the legitimacy of a website. By clicking on the small, yellow security bar, the user can get information on the validity of the site's security certificate.

A variation of the infamous Nigerian scam starring Saddam Hussein and various henchmen is circulating via e-mail, said a U.K. security firm Friday.

According to BlackSpider Technologies, spam hitting the U.K. is offering a share in the private fortunes of Hussein and his closest aids in return for hiding large amounts of money in British bank accounts.

Technology executives from some of the U.S.'s biggest computer software and hardware companies on Thursday urged the Bush administration to create a national commission on organized cybercrime.

The 15 chief technology officers -- from companies such as Adobe, Dell, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Veritas, Symantec, and McAfee -- met with members of Congress, White House officials, and their counterparts in federal agencies to plead their case.

Scammers are taking advantage of recent news that Microsoft is asking users to verify that they have a legitimate copy of Windows, a security firm said Friday.

According to Websense Security Labs, e-mails bearing the spoofed address of security@microsoft.com and with the heading "Microsoft Windows Update" ask recipients to update and/or validate both the Windows' serial number and the customer's credit card information on a Web site.

Netcraft a British web monitoring firm has released a toolbar for Internet Explorer that can help people avoid Phishing scams.

Called the Netcraft Toolbar, the free-of-charge plug-in to Microsoft's popular IE browser uses Netcraft's database of web site information to show several attributes of any visited site, including its country location, longevity, and popularity.

Financial services companies remain the most frequent targets of online phishing schemes, according to the latest figures released by an organisation working to fight the scams.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is reporting 9,019 unique scams just over the course of December 2004. This equates to a 6 percent increase over the previous month. Compared with the 2,625 reported attacks during July 2004, this number indicates a 38 percent increase in six months.

Developers of the Mozilla Thunderbird project say they have developed an anti-phishing tool that will be included in the next release of their popular open source email application.