Future Security Threats - Twenty-Four Seven Security

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December 06, 2007
Future Security Threats

It's that time of year when everyone seems to be prognosticating about the future of security, so I figured it was high time to run some type of overview on all these predictions.

One of the main points seems to be that while computers will continue to rapidly evolve, us humans will pretty much remain unupgradable. So the entire branch of exploits based on human weaknesses and social engineering, like vulnerability, or greed, or fear, will continue to flourish, and will continue to find ways into any new computing or communications device we'll think up in the future.

Another consistent trend seems to be that, in the past, much of security essentially seems to be securing the barn door after the horses have left. And while the nature of cybercrime is to exploit the exploitable, if security finally gets built into many systems and applications in development and is not just bolted on after, maybe all these criminals will go back to mugging little old ladies.

Also, with the growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking, many experts are predicting vulnerabilities in Salesforce.com (specifically an AppStore data loss), Google (tools to exploit the cross-app networking application Open Social), and with Facebook widgets. Online gaming, which is already big, will also become a big target.

The Storm Worm will continue to thrive, as it has been called the most sophisticated piece of malware ever, and even has it's own defensive capabilities, and in 2008 many think we will learn full capabilities of the Storm Worm. And where will the nexus of cybercrime be located? As China and Russia seem to be in no rush to throw the bums out, they're expected to continue dominating the cyber-underworld.

The general and depressing trend is that many expect things to get worse. But really, this year feels a lot like last year, and in summarizing the year ahead I could just as well say, Say New, Same New. But as computers continue to play an ever more important part of our lives, security is the one peg that will either get us stuck or allow tech to climb ever higher.

The blogs I culled much of this from are Richard Stiennon, Bruce Schneier, and of course, Mike Rothman.