Read more below…
This week, the Santa Clara, Calif., firm came out with its 2010 threat predictions report. Among the dire predictions — cybercriminals will target social networking sites and third-party applications and use more complex Trojans and botnets to build and execute attacks, according to McAfee Labs.
Still, McAfee Labs also predicts 2010 will be a good year for law enforcement’s fight against cybercrime.
"Over the past decade, we’ve seen a tremendous improvement in the ability to successfully monitor, uncover and stop cybercrime" said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. "We’re now facing emerging threats from the explosive growth of social networking sites, the exploitation of popular applications and more advanced techniques used by cybercriminals, but we’re confident that 2010 will be a successful year for the cybersecurity community."
Here are some online threats to watch out for:
Social networks will be the vehicle for emerging threats. Facebook, Twitter and third-party applications on those sites will make computers more vulnerable to attacks. Cybercriminals will take advantage of friends trusting friends to get users to click on malicious links. The use of abbreviated URLs on sites like Twitter makes it easier for criminals to lure people onto a bad site.
Malware. Internet surfers will continue to shift their activities away from their desktop to online applications, allowing malware writers to prey on them.
Trojans. Trojans, which can spread bad software to computers, will become more sophisticated in 2010 and easily get around current protections used by banks. New techniques include a Trojan’s ability to silently interrupt a legitimate transaction to make an unauthorized withdrawal and simultaneously check the user’s transaction limits to avoid alerting the bank.
Cybercriminals. They will target popular programs such as Adobe Reader and Flash.
In 2009, McAfee Labs saw an increase in attacks targeting client software. Cybercriminals will target Adobe products, primarily Acrobat Reader and Flash, two of the most widely deployed applications in the world. McAfee Labs expects Adobe product exploitation will likely surpass that of Microsoft Office applications in 2010.
Botnets. The versatile software will spread stolen computing power and bandwidth around the globe.
Source: http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2009/12/expect_new_evolving_computer_v.html
