The Internet is now a veritable minefield of malware, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to navigate. Every year, hundreds of millions of new threats appear and cybercriminals are constantly changing tactics hoping to catch users off-guard.

On Tuesday, April 26 at 10 a.m. PST, join me and Marc Fossi for a live Twitter discussion on the latest Internet Security Threat Report. We will discuss the report and answer your questions using the #SecChat hash tag.

This year’s report notes that Symantec detected more than 286 million new threats in 2010. This number grows every year, and in 2011, some of these threats will be pointed toward you. Many companies found that to be the case last year. The ISTR covers the trends and tricks used in targeted and massive attacks by cybercriminals. Among the trends from the report to be discussed will be the proliferation of attack kits - pre-written...

Volume 16 of the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report covers trends in the Internet security threat landscape during 2010. It has been an interesting year, to say the least. We saw vulnerabilities implicated in major events such as the Trojan.Hydraq Incident, the Stuxnet attacks, and numerous zero-day attacks.

Here are some highlights:

-          In terms of the sheer number of new vulnerabilities discovered, 2010 was a record year. At the time of writing, we documented 6,253 new vulnerabilities over the year.

-          The rise in vulnerabilities was influenced by an increase in the number of new vendors that were affected by vulnerabilities in 2010. In 2010, Symantec documented 1,914 new vendors that were impacted by vulnerabilities, compared to 734 new vendors in 2009.

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2011 Internet Security Threat Report Identifies Increased Risks for SMBs
Kevin Haley, Director, Symantec Security Technology and Response

Small businesses have flexibility that can provide them with a competitive edge in today’s Internet-based market. And, with ever more business being conducted online, keeping your sensitive information safe is more critical than ever.

Hackers do not care what the size of your business is. They only care if they can get past your defenses and relieve you of your valuables. What hackers do like about a small business is that they tend to have more money in the bank than an end-user and less cyber defenses than a larger company. And these hackers are no longer limited to highly skilled computer geeks. Using easily available attack toolkits, even a relative novice can infect your computers and extract all the information they...

Antivirus companies and malicious software makers are in a continual battle. Antivirus developers attempt to identify and block malicious software, and the malicious software developers want to evade detection so their products can succeed to earn them money.

The recently released Symantec Report on Attack Toolkits and Malicious Websites discusses how malicious software is increasingly being bundled into attack kits and how those kits are being sold in the underground economy and used in a majority of online attacks. One aspect of the report discusses the various forms of obfuscation methods built into these kits to avoid detection by antivirus sensors and researchers.

A major part of this obfuscation arms race is called a “FUD cryptor.” FUD in this case does not stand for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” but rather for “fully undetectable” or...