Websense Security Labs Announces Latest Cyber Security Predictions

Websense (News - Alert) Security Labs recently released cyber security predictions for 2012. The company also detailed the major attack trends that were prevalent in 2011.

Almost all of the major attacks of 2011 employed a Web component, whether as a vector, command-and-control center, or the pipeline for stolen data and critical IP. Web attacks are going beyond the browser; and as the number of API Web requests gains momentum, we will see attackers using the APIs for their own malicious exploitation, the report said.

According to Websense, social media is fast emerging as a method for hacking personal details and manipulating a person’s online identity. The report also said the primary blended attack method used in the most advanced attacks will be to go through your social media “friends,” mobile devices and through the cloud.

In one such instance, an APT (News - Alert) attack used the chat functionality of a compromised social network account to get to the right user. This trend, combined with the emerging mobile and cloud exploits, could form the most persistent and advanced attacks of 2012.

The year 2011 saw more than 1,000+ different mobile device attacks on smartphone or tablets. These attacks are growing at an alarming rate. According to Websense, “the number of people who fall victim to believable social engineering scams will go through the roof if the bad guys find a way to use mobile location-based services to design hyperspecific geolocation social engineering attempts.”

Two items are increasing traffic over SSL/TLS secure tunnels for privacy and protection: First, the disruptive growth of mobile and tablet devices, and second the fact that many of the largest, most commonly used Web sites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter (News - Alert) are switching to https sessions by default to ostensibly a more secure transmission.

“But as more traffic moves through encrypted tunnels, many traditional enterprise security defenses are going to be left looking for a threat needle in a haystack, since they cannot inspect the encoded traffic,” the report said.

Organizations on the leading edge will implement outbound inspection and will focus on adapting prevention technologies to be more about containment, severing communications, and data loss mitigation after an initial infection, according to Websense.

Websense also predicted that scareware tactics and the use of rogue anti-virus, which decreased a bit in 2011, will stage a comeback. The company anticipates three areas will emerge as growing scareware subcategories in 2012: a growth in fake registry clean-up, fake speed improvement software, and fake back-up software mimicking popular personal cloud backup systems.

“The most advanced criminals are going to ride the waves of personal devices, personal social media use, and personal Web activities of employees to create more advanced, social engineering attacks to get in,” said Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer, Websense, in a statement. “Many of the business and government attacks in the coming year won’t necessarily be about how complex the code is, but how well they can convincingly lure unsuspecting victims to click.”