Symantec’s Top Five Cyber Predictions Progression
Prior to 2010, Symantec released its top five cyber predictions for the year. In a recent article published by Forbes, Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Technology and Response, looked at how the five predictions were progressing.
Prediction 1: Anti-virus software would not be enough to stem the tide of cyber attacks.
Assessment: “Traditional anti-virus software that relies on the creation of signatures, or digital fingerprints, to identify threats simply cannot keep up with the current rate of malware creation, but this does not mean cyber criminals have won,” Weafer writes.
Prediction 2: URL shortening services, such as that used for Twitter, will be exploited by phishers.
Assessment: “Spammers and phishers alike certainly are catching on to this trend,” Weafer writes. “In July 2009 just more than 9 percent of spam emails used shortened URLs to disguise the true destinations of included links. In April 2010, however, this number nearly doubled to 18 percent of spam. Users should be wary of following shortened URLs sent to them from unfamiliar sources.”
Prediction 3: Specialized malware.
Assessment: “So far, we have not seen an explosion of specialized malware, but a few incidents have occurred that lead us to believe this trend might still come into its own in the second half of the year,” Weafer writes.
Prediction 4: Captcha technology will get better.
Assessment: “Unfortunately this trend is progressing just as predicted,” Weafer writes. “Earlier this year The New York Times reported spammers are indeed recruiting workers in developing countries to physically bypass Captcha codes and generate new accounts for spamming. Spammers are paying just 80 cents to $1.20 per 1,000 deciphered Captchas.”
Prediction 5: IM spam.
Assessment: “Cyber criminals not only proved our prediction right, they went beyond the mark,” Weafer writes. “Just as with links in emails and social-networking messages, users should be very wary of clicking on links in IMs.”
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