Symantec's Top 10 Internet Security Trends Of 2007

[Saint_Michael 3]

Well I saw this article and after reading it all just to find the top 10 security problems I thought I share them and give my thoughts about them. I know I know its horrible but what can I say, its me .

 

 

1.) Data Breaches

 

For the most part I am not surprise especially the big stories of 2007 which include the TJ Max breach of 45 million credit/debit cards; I believe that has been the biggest hack job ever in terms of stolen cards and id theft (somewhat). Oh lets not forget the all the VA Hospital data being stolen and all that fun stuff. I know there are other stories of college getting hit, and some medium and large businesses get hit as well but these two stand out hte most for me, especially the way the Tj Max job was done.

 

2.) Windows Vista

 

I don't get this one really even though they mention the 16 patches that have come out so far in the last 11 months (12 if you get it in December). Heck I think XP had more then that in it's first year being on the market, but most likely when XP support is killed off sometime next year I think resources will be move to vista and see how much damage can be done. Of course if I were a betting man I would see the surge coming after SP 1 comes out for vista and for us who will be sticking with XP for a few more years SP 3.

 

3.) Spam

 

Ok after seeing this I was somewhat shocked, although I think in this list that if spam was in the bottom 5 some other serious stuff has been happening. However, I would say Spam should be number 2 and if I wanted to push it and I could, put it in the number 1 spot. Spam won't go away and in some ways spam does lead into number as well, thus my argument why it would be up there. Spam is spam and the only way to get rid of it is deleting it because if one person gets nailed and sent to prison for 40 years the next person will take over, and its been obvious with some big stories of elite spammers getting nab.

 

4.) Attack Kits

 

This one puzzled me at first but after reading it a bit further you can see where Rootkits, and as mention in this article phishing kits. I can't say much about this since nothing big in the news about them jumped out of me; MPack I remember somewhat but I think that was like 4-5 months ago give or take.

 

5.) Phishing

6.) Exploitation of Trusted Brands

7.) Bots

 

Well the way the article put these three I comment on this group together as well. One thing I have to say though Bots could replace #2 any day because there were some big stories on bots this year, especially when it came to the Rootkits and zombie computers. With #5 I haven't heard to much about it, but usually when you hear about spam phishing is right next to it. Number 6 is a new one me but it just seems a fancy way of saying they got phished or hack so that one is up for interpretation.

 

8.) Web Plug-In Vulnerabilities

 

Well with the popularity of firefox in the last 2 years I would say its reasonable in it spot on trends, of course again nothing stood out really as Active X controls were a big thin in the mid to late 90's. People learn what can you can say and I think the Mozilla boys having been keeping tabs on that, and I do remember an article awhile back mentioning about the potential threat on the firefox plug ins causing some problems. Memory escapes me at the moment on what it was about s sue me.

 

9.) The Creation Of A Market For Security Vulnerabilities

 

This one I have particular interest in since news started showing up about this, and what can I say people would pay anything to keep this security problem quite hush hush and not leaked out for every cracker, hacker, phreaker, and phracker from doing their magic on those computer systems. So it should be interesting what news in 2008 brings about this type of crime of extortion.

 

And FINALLY

 

10.) Virtual Machine Security

 

Yeah I am not going to bother trying to explain this one, I have a brief idea on the concept behind this, but I know nothing really stood out news wise about this, and so here is a direct quote what it is somewhat about.

Finally, the last item on Symantec's list is virtual machine security. Virtualization is all the rage, because of perceived benefits in terms of cost and flexibility of management. Security is in there too, but there's some debate about whether virtualization creates security problems, too. Symantec expects malware writers will give the skeptics some ammunition as they find ways into virtualized systems.

Well before I give my perception of the top 10 I would say that computer virus industry and even the term hacker and identity theftwere not on the list, as viruses old and new have been popping up like the Storm Worm that i made a topic about during the summer. For the most part some of the trends are going be around until we design a neural network that connects our minds to net (yeah right), and with some of the newer ones it should be a interesting 2008 especially with Linux on the rise and scaring Microsoft quite a lot.

 

As for my top 10 this is how I would list it.

 

1. Viruses, Data breachers, Spam

2. Hackers

3. Identity Theft

4. Operating Systems

5. Bots

6. Kits

7. Phishing

8. Web Plug-In Vulnerabilities

9. Creation Of A Market For Security Vulnerabilities

10. Anything Else I can't think of it.

 

I think some people will agree with my list compared to the one the security guru's posted up.

 

SOURCE

Edited November 26, 2007 by Saint_Michael (see edit history)

[GaMeRrEmAg 0]

why did you post this? most people know that symantics software is useless. AVG is a much better application for anyone viewing this that has symantic

[Saint_Michael 3]

If you read the topic its not about the software itself its about what they have been dealing with this year and if you read the post a bit more you would understand why I posted it.

[crazyfray 0]

Plus I think that Symantec's knowledge base of virus threats is pretty good - I used it to weed out a vundo threat on my brother's machine recently.

Have a look https://us.norton.com/security_response/

The big antivirus companies all tend to maintain similar things, and are often more useful than the programs themselves if you are already infected (your computer that is, not you ).