More Intense Online Threats Predicted in 2010

As Trend Micro releases its annual report "The Future of Threats and Threat Technologies", security experts at the firm warned that cybercrime is likely to become more direct and aggressive in approach in the coming months. This further indicates that an increasingly flooded underground market might push cyber crooks to look for new and more hostile attack devices.

The security firm said that this growth is mainly because of increasingly intense competition among cyber assailants. As very less capital is required to enter the malware business and because malware authors are becoming more and more efficient, the firm sees growth in the group of prospective players in the cybercrime arena.

In its new report, Trend Micro has also said that similar to legitimate businesses, with the entry of more and more players, profit margins will certainly shrink in the business of online crime also. This may encourage mergers and takeovers among cyber crooks, as reported by v3.co.uk on December 9, 2009.

Moreover, as an increasing number of users from various parts of the world have gained access to the Internet, it is anticipated that more of non-English content will be pushed online, as the usage of multiple languages enhances the budding "market" for malware. Attacks in languages other than English such as Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese and Russian are likely to grow in number.

Instead of maintaining large botnets for spamming runs or DDoS attacks, operators will seek access to the infiltrated systems individually, and hunt for reaping payment for implanting malware on infected systems.

Further, for procuring personally identifiable information (PII), social networks are also fruitful venues. Combined with interaction clues, the quantity and quality of data openly posted by most gullible users on their profile pages are more than enough for cybercriminals to execute targeted social engineering attacks and identity thefts. This situation will get even worse in 2010, when eminent personalities will face the problem of stolen bank accounts or online impersonators.

Besides this, blackhat search engine optimization (SEO) will become a common avenue for launching Web attacks, suggests the new report.

Eventually, the annual report predicts that private and public cloud will become greater cybercrime targets in near future, and advancements in the Internet infrastructure will broaden the playing horizons for cyber crooks.

Related article: More Requests For Better E-Mail and Spam Control

» SPAMfighter News - 12/19/2009