Research over the past three years by our own Rapid Response Team has tracked attack patterns and identified five key threats: DNS system attacks, viruses and malware, buggy web applications, hacking for profit and the end users themselves. Other factors placing organisations at more risk include increasing levels of remote access and the shift from ‘hobby hackers’ to organised crime.
Many of today’s attacks are targeted and carried out for profit, such as the sale of personal information or blackmail. The focus of web-based attacks has also shifted to applications running on the web server and the data systems that back them up by exploiting flaws in web site design.
On the desktop, relatively harmless virus infections have now morphed into a powerful brew of sophisticated viruses, spyware, root kits and botnets. At the same time, attacks such as phishing and drive-by downloads target the most vulnerable portion of the network infrastructure – its users – with surprising levels of success.
It’s vital that we adapt our enterprise security now in order to address the threats posed by a Web 2.0 world.
Steve Fallin
Director
WatchGuard Technologies
