Twitter Attack labeled to be the Most Dreadful Incident of 2010, Projects Sophos in its Annual Report

The annual report of security firm 'Sophos' revealed of recent, tags micro-blogging network Twitter to be the biggest blockbuster security incident taking place in 2010.

In September 2010, the most notorious 'onMouseOver' hit the twitter site as its fumes spread like a jungle fire. The attack by cross-site-scripting (XSS) showed the extent of swiftness at which vulnerabilities can spread on social network and compromise systems of users. Sarah Brown, Lord Alan Sugar, and even Robert Gibbs, the press secretary to US President Barack Obama are some of the high profile personalities to be affected by this scam.

The report also draws attention at the remarkable WikiLeaks saga, which is esteemed to be the most high profile IT security story of 2010. It witnessed several DDoS attacks initiated against companies for retreating their support against this contentious site.

Apart from these threats, 'Stuxnet' malware also associated with a similar motivation towards targeting SCADA systems used for industrial facilities like nuclear facilities are also highlights of this report. These demonstrates the rise of cybercrime that started from the proof-of-concept and roguish virus-writing, through monetarily aggravated and controlled criminal activity, which is still the undoubtful key risk factor and lastly there stands the political motivation or a trend anticipated to continue.

Furthermore, the UK was listed as the worst country in terms of hosting infected web pages although in terms of proportion, they were below 2.7%. The other offenders, who were host countries having infected pages between 5% and 10% include the United States (approximately at 40%), Russia, France, Germany, and China.

The report also claims of Windows 7 coming under increasing attack this year with the growth of uptake.

Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant with Sophos stated that malware creators have now intentionally started to target Windows 7 and it is held that this trend will continue as the platform and its users are becoming an ever-larger target. Even iPad is also unfurled in this attack by cyber criminals as published in computing on January 19, 2011.

Full-scale computing power along with always-on, anywhere-anyplace-anytime connectivity and an added casual attitude on computing invites possible dangers. According to the report, cyber criminals are anticipated to target more on the iPad during the coming years.

Related article: Twitter Flaw Compels Victims to Follow Hacker’s Account

» SPAMfighter News - 1/28/2011