Security Threat Forecast 2009

While you’re surfing the Web during work hours trying to find the best deal on an iPod Touch, spammers and cybercriminals are hard at work on ever-sneakier ways to launch an attack. Security vendors MXLogic, WebSense and Microsoft say trouble is brewing for 2009, so be on the lookout for these emerging threats. In fact, you might want to resolve to do whatever it takes to thwart them.

In 2008, spammers started to hit social networking sites with unsolicited e-mails and malicious links. Experts predict a surge of attacks through these Web 2.0 networks. Expect to see a significant rise in Web spam and malicious posting of content into blogs, user-forums and social networks sites for search engine poisoning, spreading malicious lures, and duping users into fraud. Several new Web attack toolkits also have emerged, allowing attackers to discover sites that allow posts and/or have vulnerabilities.

Cloud-based services are an attractive target for cybercriminals and spammers to leverage for misuse, whether attackers use it to send spam or launch more sophisticated attacks including hosting malicious code for downloads, uploading stats, and testing malicious code. Experts predict attacks either through cloud-based services and on the cloud-based applications, such as CRM and communication tools.

Hackers will accelerate efforts to hide malicious code within the deep layers of legitimate Web sites, making Web surfers more vulnerable to “clickless” infections of malicious content. Security vendors such as MXLogic, Websense, PureWire and Trend Micro are doubling efforts to extend Web filtering protection to the cloud.

Spam campaigns based on timely news or events will continue to rise in 2009 as spammers make their campaigns more legitimate looking, more tempting to users and increasingly difficult to detect. Forget your rich Nigerian uncle; the next generation social engineering attacks will be too good to disbelieve.

The exploding demand for Rich Internet Applications (RIA) comes a severe lack of security for these same Web-based tools. As developers use Google Gears, Air, Flash and Silverlight to build large Web 2.0 Internet applications, experts predicts large-scale attacks using both exploits found within the core RIA components as well as the user-created services that allow attackers to remotely execute code on users’ machines.

Security experts cautions that while most of the current mobile malware exists for older mobile platforms, the ability to download applications to modern mobile devices like the popular iPhone and new Blackberry Storm creates new opportunities for spammers to exploit. 

The shutdown of the infamous McColo provider disabled several botnets, causing spam traffic to plummet as much as 50 percent.  Expect spammers to create or update botnets that are more resilient and less reliant on any single hosting provider. The 2009 threat forecast says spam and botnet servers will be more widely distributed, as well as move to foreign hosting providers, making it harder for upstream providers, the Internet community and law enforcement to find and shut them down.

While viruses, worms and network hacks aren’t ranked high in this forecast, they are expected to remain a serious threat in the coming year. Research conducted by Microsoft found that the number of vulnerabilities is falling, but the severity of attacks is increasing. As the target shifts to Layer 7, expect more dangerous and virulent strains of viruses and worms.