The Ten Most Important Security
Trends of the Coming Year
Experts Predict the Future
The Ten Most Important Security Trends of the Coming Year
Mobile Devices
1. Laptop encryption will be made mandatory at many government
agencies and other organizations that store customer/patient data
and will be preinstalled on new equipment. Senior executives,
concerned about potential public ridicule, will demand that
sensitive mobile data be protected
2. Theft of PDA smart
phones will grow significantly. Both the value of the devices for
resale and their content will draw large numbers of
thieves.
Government Action
3. Congress and state governments will pass more legislation
governing the protection of customer information. If Congress, as
expected, reduces the state-imposed data breach notification
requirements significantly, state attorneys general and state
legislatures will find ways to enact harsh penalties for
organizations that lose sensitive personal information.
Attack Targets
4. Targeted attacks will be more prevalent, in particular on
government agencies. Targeted cyber attacks by nation states against
US government systems over the past three years have been enormously
successful, demonstrating the failure of federal cyber security
activities. Other antagonistic nations and terrorist groups, aware
of the vulnerabilities, will radically expand the number of attacks.
Targeted attacks on commercial organizations will target military
contractors and businesses with valuable customer information.
5. Cell phone worms
will infect at least 100,000 phones, jumping from phone to phone
over wireless data networks. Cell phones are becoming more powerful
with full-featured operating systems and readily available software
development environments. That makes them fertile territory for
attackers fueled by cell-phone adware profitability.
6. Voice over IP (VoIP)
systems will be the target of cyber attacks. VoIP technology was
deployed hastily without fully understanding security.
Attack Techniques
7. Spyware will continue to be a huge and growing issue. The spyware
developers can make money so many ways that development and
distribution centers will be developed throughout the developed and
developing world.
8. 0-day
vulnerabilities will result in major outbreaks resulting in many
thousands of PCs being infected worldwide. Security vulnerability
researchers often exploit the holes they discover before they sell
them to vendors or vulnerability buyers like TippingPoint.
9. The majority of bots
will be bundled with rootkits. The rootkits will change the
operating system to hide the attack’s presence and make uninstalling
the malware almost impossible without reinstalling a clean operating
system.
Defensive Strategies
10. Network Access Control will become common and will grow in
sophistication. As defending laptops becomes increasingly difficult,
large organizations will try to protect their internal networks and
users by testing computers that want to connect to the internal
network.
Tests will grow from today’s simple configuration checks and virus
signature validation to deeper analysis searching for traces of
malicious code. |