McAfee's
prediction for 2010
Tarot readers working for the insecurity outfit McAfee
are predicting that hackers will give up trying to turn over Microsoft and
focus on Adobe stuff instead.
In 2009, as attacks on client software increased,
cybercriminals' favourite products were Adobe Flash and Acrobat Reader. McAfee expects that next year things will get worse with
attackers exploiting vulnerabilities in Flash applications via the Web and
Acrobat documents via e-mail attachments.
“We expect that in 2010 Adobe product exploitation is likely
to surpass that of Microsoft Office applications in the number of desktop PCs
being attacked," the report said.
On the plus side, McAfee said that 2009 marked a possible
turning point in the fight against cybercrime. Coppers have got better at
tracking, identifying and catching attackers, illustrated by two major
crackdowns this year.
"McAfee believes that in 2010 we'll see many more
successes in the pursuit of organized cybercriminals," the report states.
"The cooperation among international cybercrime-fighting agencies is now
tighter than ever, and the cybercrime Elliott Nesses of today have the computer
and network sophistication that their predecessors could not dream of just 10
years ago," the report said.
McAfee also predicts that in 2010 social networks will
become larger targets as their user bases grow. Other attack vectors will be
HTML5 and Google Chrome OS as these will "blur the line" between
desktop and online applications, creating more possible vulnerabilities.
Corporations, journalists and individuals will face more
sophisticated trojans which could interrupt legitimate banking transactions to
make unauthorised withdrawals. However botnets will decrease as cybercriminals start to
wake up that they are not particularly effective any more.