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Kaspersky's 2010 cyberthreat forecast |
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Secure content management solutions company Kaspersky Lab has outlined the threats it expects to see in 2010 as a result of cybercriminal activity. With 2009 dominated by sophisticated malicious programs with root kit functionality, the Conficker / Kido worm, web attacks and botnets, SMS fraud and attacks on social networks, Kaspersky's experts say that 2010 will be characterized by a shift in the types of attacks on users. Attacks via websites and applications will make way for attacks originating from file sharing networks. P2P 2009 has already seen a series of mass malware epidemics "supported" by malicious files spread via torrent portals. The method has been used to spread notorious threats such as TDSS and Virut as well as the first backdoor for Mac OS X. Kapersky says 2010 will witness a significant increase in these types of incidents on P2P networks. Traffic Cybercriminals will also compete for traffic. The modern cybercriminal world is making an increasing effort to legalize itself by tapping into some of the numerous ways to earn money online by using the huge amount of traffic that can be generated by botnets. Kaspersky says that though today it is mostly black-market services that compete to make use of botnet traffic, the future could well see the emergence of more "grey" schemes in the botnet services market. So-called "partner programs" enable botnet owners to profit from activities such as sending spam, performing denial of service (DoS) attacks or distributing malware without committing an explicit crime. Trojans Kaspersky expects the 2009 trend of declining gaming Trojans to be repeated for fake anti virus programs in the coming year. Fake anti virus programs first appeared in 2007 and 2009 saw a peak in their activity and involvement in a number of major epidemics. The Kido worm, for example, installed a rogue anti virus program on infected computers. With the fake anti virus market getting saturated, profits for cybercriminals have fallen. Also, this kind of activity is closely monitored by both IT security companies and law enforcement agencies, making it increasingly difficult to create and distribute fake anti virus programs. Malware "Malware will become much more sophisticated in 2010 and many anti virus programs will be slow to treat infected computers due to advanced file infection methods and root kit technologies," says Alex Gostev, Director of Kaspersky Lab's Global Research & Analysis Team. "IT security companies will respond by developing even more complex protection tools. However, the malicious programs capable of bypassing these measures will remain more or less immune to anti virus programs for some time." Web services Kaspersky expects Google Wave to lead the headlines when it comes to attacks on web services in 2010. It says that attacks on this new Google service may follow the usual pattern: first, the sending of spam, followed by phishing attacks, then the exploiting vulnerabilities and the spreading of malware. Though the planned launch of the network-based Chrome OS is a noteworthy event, experts at Kaspersky Lab do not anticipate much interest in this platform from cybercriminals. iPhone and Android Kaspersky's percieves 2010 to be a difficult time for iPhone and Android, with the first malicious programs for these mobile platforms having appeared in 2009. That is merely an indication that these devices have caught the interest of cybercriminals. Kaspersky says the only iPhone users at risk are those with compromised devices, but the same is not true for Android users who are all vulnerable to attack. The increasing popularity of mobile phones running the Android OS in China combined with a lack of effective checks to ensure third-party software applications are secure will lead to a number of high profile malware outbreaks. |
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