Category: Trends

This year’s report was sponsored by Aruba Wireless Networks. Wi-Fi, it turns out, is high on the “clout” list in enterprises. It tied with VPNs as the network technology (both wired and wireless) of top importance to enterprises over the next 18 months, both garnering a 5.6 aggregate score of importance out of a possible 7.

Wi-Fi has been now deployed in user offices and cubicles in 62% of the respondents’ companies.

And, not surprisingly, but valuable to verify, the primary architecture wars have pretty well been resolved: Nearly half the respondents said they are using or are likely to use thin access points (AP) with a controller for centralized management and security, compared to just 33% saying so last year.

Correspondingly, plans to use intelligent stand-alone APs with no centralized controller dropped by six percentage points over last year, and plans to use stand-alone APs with some centralized management decreased by about 7%.

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/wireless/2006/0731wireless1.html

As businesses and home users have become increasingly savvy about traditional threats delivered via e-mail attachments, criminals are finding new ways to lure end users to consume their attacks, according to the report.

Researchers specifically cited a growth in the number of threats that use spam e-mail messages or IMs to distribute links to Web sites where malware or spyware is secretly downloaded to end users’ computers.

Criminals are also using data garnered from PCs already infected with their botnet virus code to refine their other spam and spyware efforts, said Paul Wood, senior analyst with New York-based MessageLabs. The attack uses a phishing e-mail in an attempt to persuade PayPal customers to call a phony customer service call center where they are asked to disclose personal information including their credit card details by an automated voice system. Using other common forms of converged attacks, criminals are creating Web sites that distribute small “dropper” malware files that secretly infiltrate PCs and later deliver larger Trojan viruses.

Botnet operators are also becoming more sophisticated, using spyware loaded onto the machines they control to garner personal information that can be used to help target other attacks, MessageLabs said.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1985999,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

McAfee, Inc., the global leader in Intrusion Prevention and Security Risk Management, today announced a significant milestone in the growth of malicious threats faced by businesses and individual users. McAfee Avert Labs combine world-class malicious code and anti-virus research with intrusion prevention and vulnerability research expertise.

http://interestalert.com/story/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/0706001caaa04683.prn&Sys=siteia&Fid=COMPUELE&Type=News&Filter=ComputerandElectronics

“This is by no means a victory for the security industry over malware writers”, said James Kay, chief technology officer at BlackSpider. “What we are actually seeing is a switch in virus distribution tactics rather than a drop in viruses,” he said.

It’s more of an evolution than a new wave in internet crime,” said Thomas Raschke, senior analyst at Forrester Research.

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/news.aspx?CIaNID=34514

The report tracks annual VPN service revenue by service type, technology, remote access vs. site-to-site, intranet vs. extranet, and organization size, and tracks security services by service type and organization size.

http://www.infonetics.com/resources/purple.shtml?ms06.vs.nr.shtml
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=98632&WT.svl=wire_2

The malware writers are trying to keep the vendors busy while they target malware attacks, such as specific threats sent to specific users for theft purposes, she added.

“Figures may vary from one company and other, of course, but undoubtedly the Trojan hordes, due to their capability to steal passwords, give the creators the chance of stealing money,” Panda Software Labs’ Sanabria said.

The stats arrive at a time when the “classical” viruses (file virus, macro virus, etc) are considered almost dead by firms such as Panda. Ron O’Brien, senior security analyst at Sophos, explained to internetnews.com that the Mac statement was made in the context of whether the end user is committed to the effort or time to manage and maintain a safe and protected Windows environment.

“The introduction of new security measures, including some planned for Vista, may slow down the rate at which machines are impacted by malware, O’Brien said. Microsoft, for its part, said it believes Windows customers are becoming increasingly more secure, thanks in part to Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). Microsoft claims in a recent report that since it released MSRT, over 270 million unique computers ran the tool for about 2.7 billion executions of the removal tool.

“It’s important to remember that no software is 100 percent secure,” a Microsoft spokesperson told internetnews.com.

http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3618381