In its annual prediction of cyber threats for the New Year, software security firm McAfee [MFE] believes there will be an increase of attacks on social media services, mobile devices, Apple‘s [AAPL] operating system, as well as threats from more sophisticated botnets, and viruses that increasingly appear to look as legitimate e-mails and files.
“We’ve seen significant advancements in device and social network adoption, placing a bull’s-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most,” Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, said in a statement accompanying the report, 2011 Threat Predictions. “These platforms have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we’re already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss.”
McAfee points to two areas that social media sites can expect increased attacks. One is those like Twitter and Facebook that have abbreviated URLs or web addresses, making easier for cyber attackers to hide their malicious doings.
Another is geo-location services such as Facebook Places, which enable cyber criminals to easily find out where someone is, what they are saying, what operating systems and applications they are using, all of which allows these criminals to “craft a targeted attack,” McAfee says.
So far, mobile computing devices have largely been spared from cyber criminal activity but McAfee says with the increasing use of these systems, particularly in business environments, “that 2011 will bring a rapid escalation of attacks and threats to mobile devices, putting user and corporate data at very high risk.”
That’s because the nation’s cellular infrastructure remains “fragile” and because little has been done to towards encryption, McAfee says.
As for Apple, McAfee says the increasing use of the company’s iPhone and iPad products in the business world, as well as a lack of understanding by users on how to secure these devices, means risks to these from botnets and Trojan malware will become more common.
In 2010, there was an increase in sophisticated threats such as malware made to look like legitimate files, McAfee says. This will be more so this year, it says. Expect “friendly fire” threats, which appear to come from friends, as well as from some social media.
“This will go hand–in–hand with the increased abuse of social networks, which will eventually overtake e-mail as a leading attack vector,” McAfee says.