Social Media Related Malicious Threats Expected to Increase in 2011

Recently, the laboratory of security firm PandaLabs, the Cloud Security Company, has predicted that threats involving social media will surge during 2011.

The firm highlighted that social networking websites have become a perfect malware circulating tool for cybercrooks, particularly due to the fact that, netizens rely more on such kind of websites than other tools, like e-mail.

The firm, further highlighted that, during 2010, numerous attacks had been launched by the cybercrooks on famous social networking websites Twitter and Facebook.

PandaLabs further commented that, it is expected that during 2011, not only cybercriminals would continue using these networks, but they would also increasingly utilize these networks for distributed attacks, as reported by Technorati on December 13, 2010.

Besides, PandaLabs cautioned of increased "blended threats" in 2011. The company stated that, while e-mail are the perfect technique to carry login and financial credentials threats from new media channels are also increasing, particularly "blended threats." This situation arises when an attack is launched via an e-mail and circulated through a social networking website.

The security firm also noted that malware for Mac is still in existence, and will remain in 2011 as well. And since the market share of Mac users is increasing, the number of threats will also surge. The biggest apprehension is the number of security holes in the Apple operating system. Developers will be required to fix these holes immediately, as cybercriminals are well aware of the probabilities that these flaws provide for circulating malware.

Besides, PandaLabs highlighted that HTML5 is the ideal target for many kinds of cybercrooks and could ultimately substitute Flash. Web browsers can run this without any plug-ins, making it even more lucrative to find a security hole that can be utilized to attack users despite the type of browser they use. PandaLabs predicts to witness the first attacks on HTML5 in the approaching months of 2011.

PandaLabs concluded by saying that, on the whole, scenario is not good and will also not improve even in future.

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» SPAMfighter News - 12/23/2010