NEW DELHI: Websense, Inc., a provider of employee internet management solutions, today announced the release of the 2005 Semi-Annual Web Security Trends Report issued by Websense Security Labs.

In the first half of 2005, Websense Security Labs identified and several new high-profile exploits, including a new type of "ransom-ware" attack in which money was extorted from users in order to unlock files held hostage by the cyber criminal.

Websense Security Labs discovers and investigates today's advanced Internet threats and publishes its findings enabling organizations to protect employee-computing environments from increasingly sophisticated and dangerous internet threats. The new report summarizes findings for the first half of 2005 and presents projections for the upcoming year.

According to the report, the web continued to evolve and grow as an attack vector in the first half of 2005. The report found a marked increase in the number of malicious websites and in the amount of "crimeware", a term which refers to using malicious code written with criminal intent.

The phishing landscape also changed considerably, and the report identified significant differences in the types of targets and variety of attacks. Spyware has also changed in the way that it is being used, with increasing use of keyloggers and "screen scrapers", which are Trojan horses designed to capture end-user screenshots, in acts of industrial espionage.