Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) − a leading network security provider and the worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions - today released its latest Threat Landscape report, which details data breaches and attacks such as Sony Europe being hit by another SQL injection attack, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suffering a critical data breach, hacktivism group LulzSec's continued attack on the U.S. government and the rise of spam despite a three month decline.

The most prominent virus FortiGuard Labs detected during the month of June was, once again, Fraudload.OR, which frequently disguises itself in the form of fake antivirus software, though it also has the ability to download other Trojans and malware to an infected user's system. Fraudload.OR accounted for more than one third of new malware incidents during the last few weeks.

Fraudload.OR has been very active for nearly two months, no doubt fuelled by the success FakeAV loaders like Fraudload.OR have realized. Recently, bank accounts belonging to a FakeAV operator were frozen by the U.S. District Attorney. Nearly US$15 million was in those accounts, highlighting the wealth such operators can achieve using a scam that is now well over three years old.

Also at the top of the attack charts was MS.IE.CSS.Self.Reference.Remote.Code.Execution (CVE-2010-3971). This vulnerability affects Internet Explorer 8 and earlier versions and is triggered simply by viewing a webpage that hosts a malicious CSS style sheet. Most activity for this attack was observed mid-month particularly in Algeria and South America.

"We are indeed entering a new era of cybersecurity, one where proactive measures are being put in place and June's attacks show the importance of keeping patches up-to-date to help avoid exploitation by malicious code," said Derek Manky, senior security strategist at Fortinet. "It's also important to employ an IPS solution to help block malicious code looking to exploit vulnerable software and a Web application firewall to help protect your public-facing digital assets."

About FortiGuard Labs

FortiGuard Labs compiled threat statistics and trends for this threat period based on data collected from FortiGate® network security appliances and intelligence systems in production worldwide. Customers who use Fortinet'sFortiGuard Services should be protected against this vulnerability with the appropriate configuration parameters in place.

FortiGuard Services offer broad security solutions including antivirus, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering and anti-spam capabilities. These services help protect against threats on both application and network layers. FortiGuard Services are updated by FortiGuard Labs, which enables Fortinet to deliver a combination of multi-layered security intelligence and zero-day protection from new and emerging threats. For customers with a subscription to FortiGuard, these updates are delivered to all FortiGate, FortiMail™ and FortiClient™ products.

The full Threat Landscape report, which includes the top threat rankings in several categories, is available now. Ongoing research can be found in the FortiGuardCenter or via FortiGuard Labs' RSS feed. Additional discussion on security technologies and threat analysis can be found at the Fortinet Security Blog.