Tech enthusiasts have a number of new products to look forward to next year, but what about security concerns? McAfee on Tuesday released its list of threat predictions for 2011 and it highlighted things like URL shorteners, location-based services, Apple products, and Internet TV.
“We’ve seen significant advancements in device and social network adoption, placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most,” Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, said in a statement. “These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we’re already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss.”
Also on McAfee’s radar is Apple, which will have to fend off increasingly sophisticated Apple-targeted malware in 2011. Though the Apple Mac OS platform has been relatively secure, the popularity of iPhones and iPads in business environments, combined with a lack of knowledge about how to secure these devices, could make Apple botnets and Trojans a common occurrence, McAfee said.
On social networks, meanwhile, one rule of thumb is to be careful what you click. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook could fall prey to URL shortening scams, McAfee said. While these abbreviated links make it easier to fit Twitter’s 140-character limit, they are also an easy way for criminals to mask and direct users to malicious Web sites. More than 3,000 tiny URLs are created each minute, so McAfee said it expects to see a growing number of URLs used for spam, scamming, and other malicious purposes.
While a recent study found that only 4 percent of adults use location-based services, that has not stopped companies from rolling out location features; from Foursquare to Google Latitude to Facebook Places. McAfee said the information shared on these location services could enable cyber criminals to craft a targeted attack and predicted an increased use of this tactic across the most popular social-networking sites in 2011.
Many of these location-based services are used via mobile phones, and McAfee predicted a “rapid escalation” in the number of mobile attacks thanks to “widespread adoption of mobile devices in business environments, combined with historically fragile cellular infrastructure and slow strides toward encryption.”
The increased use of Internet-connected TVs could also pose a security risk, McAfee said. A manufacturer’s rush to market could result in the proliferation of suspicious and malicious apps on platforms like Google TV. “These apps will target or expose privacy and identity data, and will allow cybercriminals to manipulate a variety of physical devices through compromised or controlled apps, eventually raising the effectiveness of botnets,” McAfee said.
What else made McAfee’s threat list?
* Hacktivism: McAfee predicted a rise in the number of politically motivated cyber attacks. “More groups will repeat the WikiLeaks example,” McAfee said, though strategy will become more sophisticated and leverage social networks.
* Friendly Fire: McAfee predicted a rise in the use of malicious content disguised as e-mail from sources you know. “Signed” malware that imitates legitimate files will become more prevalent, and “friendly fire,” in which threats appear to come from your friends but in fact are viruses such as Koobface or VBMania, will continue to grow as an attack of choice by cybercriminals, McAfee said. This could go hand-in-hand with social network attacks, which could eventually overtake e-mail attacks.
* Botnets: McAfee Labs predicts that the recent merger of Zeus with SpyEye will produce more sophisticated bots due to improvements in bypassing security mechanisms and law enforcement monitoring. Additionally, McAfee Labs expects to see a significant botnet activity in the adoption of data-gathering and data-removal functionality, rather than the common use of sending spam.
Author : Chloe Albanesius