Last week, we talked about the year inreview. And now, everyone wants to know what will happen next. Well, Idon't claim to be a clairvoyant, but it’s safe to say that thefollowing areas will be interesting to watch in the coming year:
o Election Campaigns – As political candidates increasingly turn to the Internet, it is important to understand the associated IT security risksof increased dependence and interdependence on technology in theelection process. These risks include, among others, the diversion ofonline campaign donations; dissemination of misinformation; fraud;phishing; and the invasion of privacy.
o Bot Evolution – We expect bots to diversify andevolve in their behavior. For example, we may see things like phishingsites hosted by bot zombies.
o Advanced Web Threats – As the number of availableWeb services increases and as browsers continue to converge on auniform interpretation standard for scripting languages, such asJavaScript, Symantec expects the number of new Web-based threats tocontinue to increase.
o Mobile Platforms – Interest in mobile security has never been higher. As phones become more complex, more interesting and more connected, we expect attackers to take advantage.
o Spam Evolution – Symantec expects to see spam continuously evolve in order to evade traditional blocking systems and trick users into reading messages.
o Virtual Worlds - Symantec expects that as the use of persistent virtual worlds (PVWs) and massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) expands, new threats will emerge as criminals, phishers, spammers, and others turn their attention to these new communities.