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2007 Security Predictions

12.13.2006 - 6:54 AM

Websense Security Labs 2007 Security Predictions

 

First let’s recap our 2006 predictions from: http://www.websense.com/securitylabs/blog/blog.php?BlogID=14)

 

2006 RECAP

 

  • Web borne worms: This definitely was an accurate prediction as we saw several high-profile web-based worms.

 

  • RSS Malcode: We did not see what we expected in 2006 with RSS exploits. We believe this is partly due to the delay in technologies such as IE and Office, both of which will support RSS natively.

 

  • Trojans outpace Worms: This was definitely an accurate prediction as there was minimal high-profile worms released. Trojan Horses on the other hand are being released in abundance daily.

 

  • Vishing (VOIP Vishing): Yes, we were the ones who coined that term and yes it happened in 2006. We saw a few VOIP Phishing attacks that targeted users via automated calling.

 

  • Toxic Blogs: This was definitely an accurate prediction and really is a carry over from 05 and will carry into 07. User-created content is not easy to filter and the number of target-users is massive.

 

  • XBot 360: We did not witness any Xbox infections that were used to host BOT’s.

 

  • XSS Attacks increase: This was an accurate prediction as XSS attacks within search engines, financial sites, and within social networks all made headlines in 06.


 

 

2007 Predictions

 

  • Web 2.0 security issues continue to escalate: Functionality has beaten security once again and Web 2.0 enabling technologies are being rolled out en mass with security often being an after thought. We see several areas of concern:

 

  • User-created content: As mentioned in 2006 we believe that empowering end-users with creative, dynamic, content control will lead to increased security problems. This is an elevated concern due to the popularity of such sites.
  • Social Networks: The large population of users and ability to link users through profiles and networks lead us to believe that more security issues will arise within these communities. This is not unique to entertainment social networks either as there are several business networks of users linking for employment recruiting, business development, and other business-related reasons.

 

  • SOA / Web Services: The web as a platform is finally here. The advent of mashing web services together and linking several properties together will lead to increased security issues as cross domain security issues can affect all links in the chain.

 

  • Criminal Underground Economy / Zero-day Market Increases: 2006 was the year of the rise of cybercrime and the cyber-criminal. We believe that 2007 will be the year of the cyber crime underground becoming better organized and a better run economy. As part of that the market for zero-day attack code will be very competitive. This will result in more numbers of zero-day attacks and better zero-day attacks both on the client and server-side.

 

  • Anti-Phishing Toolbar Exploits: In 2006 several high profile companies released anti-phishing toolbars embedded within the browser. Based on the success of some of these we believe that they will become targets of exploit code in order to disable or avoid there prevention mechanisms.

 

  • Enhanced Concealment of Data: 2007 will see high increases in the numbers of information stealing malicious code. We believe that prevention methods will also lead to better concealment of the information leaving organizations and the network in order to avoid detection. Use of encryption with malicious code will increase (i.e. cryptovirology).

 

  • BOT Evolution:   The bot revolution will continue but will evolve again with counter-measures. Distributed command-and-control (C&C) and use of other protocols than IRC or HTTP will be used to control BOT networks. Increased use of encryption and custom packing of BOT’s will also occur.
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