The year has not yet ended but McAfee, Inc has already published its top ten predictions for security threats in 2008 and it doesn"t look rosy folks!
Topping the list is the ever present scapegoat of the year Windows Vista, McAfee predicts that hackers will start to take a much more varied interest in the operating system as it becomes more widely deployed, following the Q1 roll out of the highly anticipated Service Pack 1 (SP1) --which is currently under-going its final testing phase of release candidates.
- Windows Vista Joins the Party-In 2008, Vista is set to cross the 10 percent markt share barrier. The release of SP1 is also expected to accelerate the adoption of the Vista. And as Vista becomes more popular, attackers and malware authors will start in earnest to explore ways to circumvent the operating systems defenses.
- Adware on the Decline. Adware will continue its decline. This trend was confirmed in 2007 and with the major players out of the game, adware is expected to continue its decline in 2008.
- Botnets Piggyback on Storm"s Success. Botnet attacks will see an increase.
- Crimeware and Phishing Move on to Secondary Targets. Cybercrooks will increasingly target smaller, less-popular sites with data-thieving phishing scams.
- Instant Malware: A Different Kind of IM. There has been malware that spreads via IM and the number of vulnerabilities in popular instant messaging applications will shoot up.
- Parasitic Crimeware will takes Root. Parasitic infectors are viruses that modify existing files on a disk, injecting code into the file where it resides.
- Virtual Threat Growth to Outpace Real-World Growth. The number of password-stealing Trojans that targeted online games in 2007 grew faster than the number of Trojans that target banks. This trend will continue.
- Virtualization Radically Changes Security. Rootkits, will be easily defeated, but researchers, professional hackers, and malware authors will begin looking at ways to circumvent this defensive technology. VMware vulnerabilities will increase.
- VoIP Attacks Speak Up- VoIP attacks will rise by 50%
- Web 2.0: Interactivity Yields More Productive Malware-Threats will move to the web 2.0 and newer technologies.
Thanks to WinVistaClub for the heads up!