Predicting is one thing that I should be steering clear of. While writing this article, I had thought about this a million times. However, some truths don’t change and prediction might just be a weak word for it. Perhaps, we should incorporate this as if it’s a plan for the New Year? A weak economy; a new president manning the chair; a global financial turmoil; job lay-offs and a pinch on company bottom lines -- all these reasons isn’t going assuage the Internet security threat wounds. Here are a few certainties companies have to contend with at the turn of 2009:
1. Sophistication, prevalence and scope of attacks: The desire to crack into company resources; hack networks, gain valuable personal or corporate data and all sorts of related attacks are going to increase in sophistication; the number of times they are going to occur and perhaps, new ways of attacking could just come to the fore, thanks new channels made available to hackers (just like for all of us) which include cloud computing, web 2.0, social networks, etc.
2. The Attack of Botnet machines: An incidence, estimated in millions is at the verge of explosion. The prevalence of botnet infected machines is a likelihood almost everyone has to contend with. Jennifer Bayuk, an independent security consultant, says that “anti-virus programs will not be able to detect these threats at all” and further, she states that “There is absolutely no way to anticipate all the malware that is on a machine such that you can respond to it in any organized way”. It seems that noncompliance can really cost a lot and doesn’t make any sense when pitted against the possible losses accruing due to identity theft attacks and botnet machine attacks.
3. Web Insecurity: According to The Sophos Security Threat Report 2009, automated remote attacks like SQL injects can wreak havoc and this channel still continues to be the number one way to inject web-borne malware into computer systems. Web insecurity can take other forms of attack too such as friendly looking spam messages which lead to compromised or hacked legitimate sites, which in turn would lead to malicious sites.
4. A Deluge of malicious email: Is your computer patched, updated and fully protected? I ask you this because if it isn’t you are going to face an invisible disaster -- you wouldn’t know why your system crashed or if you have been attacked or not. Attackers now load malware, spyware and viruses on Non- executable files (the traditional mode of transport for the digital vermin). You now have all of this loaded on harmless looking doc files and pdf files. Take a check.
5. ID theft: Come New Year, there will be a slew of new problems for most people (sorry about being so pessimistic, I couldn’t help it). The need to make more money has never been this pressing, thanks to the incumbent recession. More and more ways of trying to fish out your credit card details; hacking into your networks and much more will be undertaken by deploying improved technology. Consumers have never been this vulnerable before .Gear up and protect yourself today.