McAfee: Lookout for Attacks on Facebook and Twitter in 2010

According to a new report from McAfee Labs, Facebook and Twitter should prepare for some serious security threats in 2010. Citing each company’s considerable growth in 2009, McAfee warns that social networking sites will “face more sophisticated threats” and that “explosion of applications on Facebook and other services will be an ideal vector for cybercriminals, who will take advantage of friends trusting friends to click links they might otherwise treat cautiously.” Furthermore, the report explores how cybercriminals are becoming more selective in their attacks, picking individuals and corporations based on the information that is already accessible about them online.

Here are some of McAfee’s additional findings.

• HTML 5 will blur the line between desktop and online applications. This, along with the release of
Google Chrome OS, will create another opportunity for malware writers to prey on users.
• Email attachments have delivered malware for years, yet the increasing number of attacks targeted
at corporations, journalists, and individual users often fool them into downloading Trojans and
other malware.
• Cybercriminals have long picked on Microsoft products due to their popularity. In 2010, we anticipate
Adobe software, especially Acrobat Reader and Flash, will take the top spot.
• Banking Trojans will become more clever, sometimes interrupting a legitimate transaction to make an
unauthorized withdrawal.
• Botnets are the leading infrastructure for cybercriminals, used for actions from spamming to identity
theft. Recent successes in shutting down botnets will force their controllers to switch to alternate, less
vulnerable methods of command, including peer-to-peer setups.
• In spite of the worldwide scope of botnets, we anticipate even more successes in the fight against all
forms of cybercrime in 2010.

To download the report in PDF form, check out the following link: McAfee Labs Report: Internet Security Threats 2010.To help protect yourself from falling victim to these threats, consider adopting our approved Online Reputation Management and Internet Privacy New Year’s Resolutions.

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