RSA Too Foresees Expansion in Online Threats in 2010

The network security company RSA has just recently released its security projections for the year 2010, wherein it has predicted growth in the online security threats, similar to the predictions made by all other security firms.

As per RSA, with the fraudsters sharpening their skills to rapidly exploit freshly detected flaws in desktops and websites, Trojan attacks and malware infections will augment massively in coming times. Cyber crooks will try to gain better penetration into the cybercrime infrastructure.

Thousands of computers of Fortune 500 and government employees are already compromised with trojans that hit them as consumers. In fact, a large number of these infected systems are laptops that are carried to home or on travel using access via a VPN. Moreover, it is expected that the criminals will evolve ways to monetize all such infected resources. This, in turn, will facilitate them to enter the networks of affected organizations. People working in banks are expected to be the prime target.

A shift in online assaults away from consumers to corporate bank accounts is already being noticed by the security experts. phishing assaults are being increasingly targeted at the employees in financial/accounts departments of the organizations. This trend is anticipated to expand in future.

The security firm has also predicted that there will be a further increase in social engineering attacks based on web 2.0. Companies are developing web 2.0 functionality so as to support an increasing consumer demand, but in this way they are becoming an easier target for social engineering assaults combined with malware.

In this regard, another security firm Symantec says that the high popularity of social engineering is due to the fact the users are being attacked regardless of the browser or OS they are using. That's why social engineering has become a prevailing assault tactic and this will most probably be the growing trend for 2010.

According to the RSA report, rate of malware infection on PCs was 10 folds higher in 2009 as compared to 2008, and further exponential increase for this wildfire infection is expected in 2010. It is noteworthy that all anti-virus firms have agreed that 2010 will see nastier malicious codes, and the only way to evade this looming threat is to ensure proper security of the computers.

Related article: RSA Attendees Responsible for Wireless Vulnerability

» SPAMfighter News - 1/11/2010