Phishers Grow Clever, Focus on the Money - Projections for the Future

Websense expects to see phishers start taking advantage of popular tools that link us all. For example, the use of social networks to launch attacks is expected to increase. Also, with the use of RSS becoming more popular, and RSS feeds updating their users frequently with embedded downloads, phishing attacks might sneak past the means of detecting them - for example, a malicious hacker could use a compromised web server to sneak crimeware into an RSS feed.

Websense also expects privacy issues to proliferate, especially those connected to the storage of personal, private, and confidential business data on the Internet. "These online filing cabinets can store potentially sensitive personal and business information, which is very valuable and tempting to the cyber-criminal," Websense explains. Any company storing or transmitting that kind of information online for its customers will need to take the strictest security measures. In this light, AOL's recent privacy debacle when it posted the searches of 650,000 users over a three-month period is truly frightening.

Websense expects that peer-to-peer networks will also be used increasingly to spread crimeware. Those who enjoy downloading songs or videos from such networks could end up with some unpleasant surprises.

Websense believes that we will also see a rise in mobile attacks, which have so far had little if any impact. In particular, mobile attacks that use proximity (such as Bluetooth) are expected to rise. The company believes that they will continue to have relatively little impact at first, but "the risk will grow as more mobile technologies are converted to 'smart' phones, more become internet enabled, and as more information is stored on them."