Security Curve Weblog

Let the 2007 soothsaying begin

It's time for one of my favorite holiday traditions! And no, I'm not talking about roasting chestnuts, baking cookies, or putting up the tree. Sure, those things are all fun too, but one thing I particularly love is the new-year security predictions from the vendor community. And guess what? It's already started. Now, of course the real fun won't be underway until the end of the year, but in the meantime we can have a bit of fun with the predictions that are already out. McAfee whipped theirs out last week and today IBM's X-Force (formerly ISS) cut loose and let 'er fly. Awesome.

So what's on the horizon for 2007 according to the witches of Endor? Check it out; X-Force says:

- Spear phishing will increase
- Less multi-factor authentication
- Less niche-AV, more holistic security products
- More exploitation of web browser flaws for adware installation

and McAfee says:

- More spearphishing
- More malware on phones and mobile devices
- More malware in video content (think YouTube)
- More use of application scanning software

So, what do you think? Do you agree? I would tend to agree with both firms that phishing will probably increase. I think it's also possible that malware will continue to increase. However, I don't agree with McAfee that there will be more phone malware just like I didn't agree with them when they predicted it for 2006. Just for the record, these were last-year's predictions from McAfee:

- Phone malware to eclipse PC malware: "McAfee... predicts that the damage caused by new mobile threats is likely to be more extensive than those caused by today’s PC threats..."
- Mobile malware to impact wired networks: "...this will result in instantly mature mobile threats that can devastate networks and consumer data with little fanfare or warning"
- More Automated phishing: "McAfee AVERT Labs predicts an increase in distributed phishing Trojans -- Trojans that turn an infected computer into a phishing Web site and then spam others to go to that infected machine or site"

So, maybe they're not the "Great Zoltar" after all. Of course, they didn't get everything wrong. In the "on-target" group of predictions from 2006 were:

- Adware, Spyware, Phishing will continue to grow and fraudulent web sites will continue to pop up

Posted by Ed at December 7, 2006 09:57 AM | TrackBack