Hi malware fighters,
All security and av-vendors have made predictions for the coming security year 2010. Panda Security - Kaspersky Lab - F-Secure - AVG - RSA - Verizon - Anton Chuvakin - McAfee - Symantec - ESET looked into their crystal balls and came up with the following predictions for 2010
The summon it up neatly more of the same but in larger quantities. But the insights differ.
W 7 and Mac OS X
The introduction of W7 this year is a positive influence according to Finnish F-secure researchers, XP SP3 will become a malware-haven or malware getto in regions where W7 is less prevalent. Most av-vendors think that when the participation of W7 is large enough also this new OS will be attacked. They foresee this coming within the next two years, according to Panda Security. Malcreants are migrating their malware for the new MS platform and especially migrating to the 64-bit version. Kaspersky means that the security holes inside the new Windows7 will result in many drive-by download attacks, and also because of holes in products like Adobe’s and Apple’s are being found. Security vendor Verizon has another vision. Windows 7 will be more robust as expected and withstand attacks so attackers will go for the application software.
Also the Mac OS X will have full attention of malcreants. As the market share increases, the larger the number of attacks will become. “2010 will prove once and for all that Macs aren’t immune to exploits”, according to Websense.
Fake-virusscanners
The most remarkable prediction has PC Tools. The vendor predicts a trend to combine all existing malware trends with new, inventive techniques. This malware will be more socially interactive and look more reliable and trustworthy to users, like some fake-av programs already do. The next step will be that cyber criminals are going to use budgets to start their own call centers, helplines, and virtual offices and service providers and even start ad campaigns for their rogue fake av scanners. Furthermore fake av scanners will become more and more aggressive and will even hijack operational systems.
Kaspersky on the contrary predicts less fake av-scanners, because the market is flooded by them already, so less income for the crooks. Also raised attention from intelligence and security services alike make it harder to spread and create fake av.
Fortinet thinks that the general users now is aware of scare ware, cyber criminals will switch to ransom ware during 2919, where the ask money for digital properties they encrypted.
Ads
This year the New York Times was being hit by attackers posing as legit advertisers and then placed malicious ads. A succesful attack well worth investing in it. Legit bought ads or hacked ad space users will be attacked in this way during the coming year.
Social engineering
Now the Operational System and applications are becoming more solid and secure, the easiest way to get to people’s money or install malicious software is to socially engineer or mislead them, according to ESET’s Randy Abrams. He too thinks the coming of W7 makes malcreants can’t easily infect systems. Symantec says social engineering became so popular because it does not matter what OS or what browser is being used, the user themselves are being attacked. “Weak parts on a computer are less important. Social engineering has become one of the prevailing attack methods and this will be the growing trend for 2010.”
Shortened URL-services
Services to shorten URLs have become a trend with Twitter. A big problem there is that the user does not know where they re-direct to after clicking the link. The popular URL-shortener Bit.ly let us know they will scan better for spam and malcode, nut an increase in abusing the services is expected for the coming new year. Also spammers will use shortened URLs to circumvent spam filters. But parties involved will protect better, because their business model will be under attack.
Human CAPTCHA-crackers
As spammers find it more and more difficult to break the CAPTCHA-codes automatically, they will use human forces in developing economies to define new spam accounts manually to try and circumvent new detection technologies. Symantec assumes individuals that manually make the accounts get paid 10% of the overall costs, while account hunters will get 30 to 40 dollar per 1.000 accounts.
DDoS-attack
At least one big distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) against some nation. according to F-Secure.
Everyone into the Cloud
The cloud will be the av technology of the days to come, while others now report they have been doing this “for years and years”. In 2010 all av vendors will go into the cloud if they aren’t already doing so, well this means Spanish Panda Security. On the other side cloud services are an interesting target platform for attackers.
A specific service that can await new attacks is Google Wave. Initially cybercrime will use the service for spreading spam, then it will be abused in phishing attacks, abusing security holes and spreading malware will follow. Chrome OS will be left alone, while MacAfee thinks this will be a hacker’s paradise.
Last but not least cyber criminals will hide inside the cloud, like we have seen this recent year.
Cyberwar
For quite some time we hear about cyberwar and cyber terror, where China and North-Korea are mentioned. We saw large scale Ddos-attacks against Estonia and Georgia last year. Govt sites can also come under attack of politically motivated hackers to deface an official website with political slogans. We will see both kind of attacks during the coming year.
Increase of malware
All av vendors agree that we will encounter more and more vicious malcode during 2010. A lot of av scanners will have a hard time to detect them, predicts Kaspersky Lab. Some vendors will develop complex security software as an answer to this kind of advanced malware, but some malware will be able to circumvent detection, go under the radar and stay immune for quite some time.
Users that do their Internet banking have to watch out for state of the art banking Trojans. Then the malcreants will develop geo-located attack-versions that are varied according to language and content, so the user will run a higher risk to open the wrong link. Symantec also expects an increase of English language spam.
The World Soccer Chamiponships will play an important role for Trojans, fake-ticket business, spam, attacks on legit ticket shops and DDoS-attacks.
AVG sees the coming automatic malware generation as one of the biggest problems for 2010,
making end-users will choose compete security suites over a stand-alone av solution. Then it warns against upcoming economies. The number of users in Brazil, China and India will increase tremendously, but using illegal software and the absence of av or fw will create lots of problems Users will be sitting ducks for attack in mentioned countries.
Verizon thinks the development of malware will come to a standstill. “Malware won’t evolve further.”
Full-disk encryption and NAC
This will not come to fruition and there won’t be a break-through, says Anton Chuvakin, who is predicting that Network Access Controls (NAC) will be almost gone near the end of 2010.
Data leaks
In 2009 the biggest leakage of data took place in human history, the theft of over 130 million creditcard data at Heartland Payment Systems. The coming year will see more data leakage, but smaller. McAfee focuses on social networking. Fake applications will be a problem for the hundreds of millions that use it, turning their data into the hands of cyber crooks.
China
Will stay at the wrong end of the stick (and stays an interesting role model for others ;D )
Community
De internet community will slowly get educated, according to Verizon.The number of senior users that deal with cybercrime will go down considerably, while young ones learn their generation how to protect, so they will be better informed and able to secure themselves by identifying, finding and defy cyber criminals. After a ten year period of study, research, coordination and training cyberpolice will now finally come “harvest” on this, according to McAfee.
RSA closed on a positive note, that there will be more cooperation between the members of the security community, both researchers and vendors alike will cooperate to launch new initiatives.
Well anyway Polonus wishes you all a malware free and solidly secure avast-year 2010!
polonus
It’s still a security related issue.