Zscaler Forecasts Security Trends for 2010

Zscaler Inc., a leader in the market of SaaS (Security-as-a-Service), published its predictions of ten security threats for 2010 during the 3rd week of December 2009.

Michael Sutton, Vice-President of Zscaler, states that it has been felt that Apple's operating system OS X is safer than other operating systems because attackers target it much less. While this contention might be a fact, on the whole the OS X is less secure. With the growing market share of Apple, the software company will be compelled to spend on its security systems on account of attacks targeting its devices, predicts Sutton, as reported by The Tech Herald on December 18, 2009.

Moreover, some people using OS X get influenced by Apple's marketing and insist that no attack would harm them, but this is not true. Although peoples' reaction is understandable given that Windows-based Fake AV software fail to infect Mac systems, people should take this as a warning. These kinds of attacks will never be successful on Macs as OS X is different from Windows.

The next forecast that Sutton makes relates to 'iPhone' and its security flaw.

Forecast No.3 relates to Web-based viruses 'StalkDaily' to 'Samy.' These virus attacks have been largely considered as trials against the planned attacks aiming for financial gains. This is likely to change next year.

Prediction No.4 relates to attacks due to the evolution of different Web platforms. For example, as the social-networking websites evolve, attackers would exploit this and deploy malicious programs on sites. Consequently, these sites would be struggling against the detection and prevention of programs.

Ranking fifth on Zscaler's predictions list is "cloud," which provides novel processing and storage capacity at low cost. Zscaler says that attackers will focus on cloud during 2010.

Ranking sixth, seventh and eighth are the emergence of DDoS assaults for financial gain, hole-jabbing into cloud, and click-jacking respectively.

Prediction nine talks about browser vendors who would eventually take XSS seriously, while the prediction ten relates to data-breaches against Card Systems that will be done very easily during 2010.

Related article: Zscaler Cautions About Rising Prevalence of Fake Movie Downloads

» SPAMfighter News - 12/30/2009