Beware of Social Networks in 2010

McAfee foresees threats to social networking sites, banking security and botnets in 2010

McAfee Labs, in its latest report called "2010 Threat Predictions", said it foresees an increase in threats related to social networking sites, banking security, and botnets in 2010.
With the ever growing footprint of social networking websites, McAfee says sites such as Facebook will face more sophisticated threats. The 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. The company also points out that along with Twitter's success we have seen widespread adaptation of abbreviated URL services, such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com. These services now appear in all sorts of communications-making it easier than ever to mask the URLs that users are asked to click.

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. McAfee warns that home users and IT personnel should provide extra protection for computers.

Cybercriminals have long picked on Microsoft products due to their popularity. In 2010, McAfee anticipates that Adobe software, especially Acrobat Reader and Flash, will take the top spot. Also, Banking Trojans will become cleverer, 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.

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