Net-security firm McAfee predicts that Microsoft will no longer be the primary target for hackers next year. Instead, these evil villains of the Web will turn their attention to Adobe.
Evidence of this is the already growing number of attacks targeted to the vulnerabilities in Acrobat Reader and Flash this year. And with the tricky update process that users need to go through, as well as the overall lack of awareness that their software need updating makes it even more easier for hackers and virus writers to prey on them.
Adobe however, isn’t the only one that’s in danger in 2010.
McAfee also predicts that attacks on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook will be stronger and will cause more damage in the coming year. Trojans and malwares will also gain power in 2010. The security firm predicts that banking Trojans may gain the ability to interrupt legit transactions as well as make unauthorized withdrawals without being detected.
Lastly, McAfee discusses in their report how HTML5 could give “cybercriminals new opportunities to write malware and prey on users”.
HTML5 holds all the promises that today’s web community seeks – primarily that of blurring and removing the lines between a web application and a desktop application. HTML5-based attacks will become even more tempting once the Google Chrome Operating System is released. (It’s scheduled for second half of 2010.)
Google Chrome OS is intended for use with netbooks, and HTML5 enables not only a rich Internet experience, but also offline applications. Another motivation for attackers is HTML5’s anticipated cross-platform support, which will allow attackers to eventually reach users of many mainstream browsers.
Although the new web technology is still in the development phase, some elements are already being used by Google Chrome which means there’s also trouble brewing up for the browser.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/29/security_predictions_2010/
