Cyber threat predictions for 2010

NEW DELHI, INDIA: According to the Trend Micro 2010 Future Threat Report, cloud computing and virtualization, while offering significant benefits and cost-savings-move servers outside the traditional security perimeter and expand the playing field for cybercriminals.

The 'next-generation' protocol designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force, Internet Protocol v.6, is still in the experimentation stages of replacing the current IPv4, now 20 years old.

“As users start to explore IPv6, so will cybercriminals, and we can expect to see proof-of-concept elements in IPv6 beginning to materialize in the upcoming new year. Possible avenues for abuse include new covert channels or C&C. But don't expect active targeting of IPv6 address space-at least not in the very immediate future,” said Amit Nath, country manager, Trend Micro (India and SAARC).

Domain names are becoming more internationalized and the introduction of regional top-level domains (Russian, Chinese and Arabic characters) will create new opportunities to launch age-old attacks through lookalike domains for phishing, using Cyrillic characters in place of similar looking Latin characters. Trend Micro predicts this will lead to reputation problems and abuse that will challenge security companies.

Social media and social networks will be used by cybercriminals to enter the users' 'circle of trust'. Social engineering will continue to play a big role in the propagation of threats. But the increasing saturation of social media and the content shared via online social interactions, cybercriminals will definitely try to penetrate and compromise popular communities more than ever in 2010. Social networks are also ripe venues for stealing personally identifiable information (PII).

Key forecasts:

Windows 7 will have an impact since it is less secure than Vista in default configuration.

Risk mitigation is not as viable an option anymore–even with alternative browsers/alternative operating systems.

Malware is changing its shape-every few hours.

Drive-by infections are the norm-one Web visit is enough to get infected.

New attack vectors will arise for virtualized/cloud environments.

Bots can't be stopped anymore, and will be around forever.

Company/social networks will continue to be shaken by data breaches.