About a year ago we predicted what the biggest
security risks would be in 2011 and as we're coming up towards the end of the
year we wanted to see how accurate these predictions were. We have rated our
2011 predictions on a scale of A-F. Here we go!
1. The Stuxnet sequels are coming
While there wasn’t a Stuxnet sequel in 2011, there
was the Stuxnet prequel in Duqu, which was perhaps
written by the same group as Stuxnet. So while we weren't entirely correct we
weren't too far off either. We’ll see if in 2012 we hear about more
predecessors and new models built on the success of Stuxnet. Score: B
2. More blended threats and companies will
struggle to stay secure while covering more ground
There were definitely more targeted attacks
against organizations in 2011 than ever before. RSA, ShadyRat, NightDragon,
Nitro and the list of attacks go on and on. Score: A
3. More corporate breaches will occur over
social media channels
Not too many corporate breaches happened over
Facebook, Twitter or other social networks during 2011. There were a number of
compromises that led to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts being
compromised and hacked to display unwanted content but they weren't used to
compromise any internal data. There was definitely a big increase in the number
of attacks that used social networks to spread. Every day we track several
attacks on Facebook. And while we hear of small-scale data loss through social
networks everyday (recent survey results suggested that more than 20 percent of companies had confidential material posted
to the social web), we are going to give this prediction a score of B-.
4. You down with DLP? Malware exploit kits
will add zero-day vulnerabilities faster, increasing their use in drive-by
download attacks.
I
think this is a definitive yes, as the big giant breaches continued at a record
pace in 2011. A number of them used zero-day vulnerabilities to both steal
critical IP, corporate and government secrets, and leak to third-party outlets.
More surprising, however, was that a number of these didn’t stem from the
dreaded “APT” word. Most were social engineered attacks and were crafted to infect
companies with Remote Access Tools (RATs), which have been around for years. As a result I’m seeing more and more people getting
serious about DLP projects now. In fact, more than 20
percent of 1,000 IT pros we surveyed said they were going to begin or accelerate
a DLP project due to the chaos of 2011. Score: A
5: Is there an app for that? The iPad, iPhone
and other smartphones will be prime targets for cybercriminals.
Over
the last year, we have seen a drive-by download for jailbreaking iOS software and
a number of exploits. Apple may be on to something by requiring developer
application review and application sandboxing. While iOS drive-bys have been
few and far between—mobile malware and Android attacks in particularly are
increasingly becoming more prevalent. This doesn’t mean we won’t see it this
year, So if we go by the title of the prediction alone, we did see a mobile
drive-by for iOS, so I’ll give it a C.
If we include all the bots, Trojans and malware created for the Android system,
I’m going to increase this score to an A.
So
there you have it, if we were giving a
grade point average, we are at a B+ or a A-. Not too bad…
Stay
tuned—very soon the Websense Security Labs team will release our top predictions
for 2012. Wait til you see what we come up with this year!
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