Identity theft and data security breaches

Almost 20 years since the commercialization of the Internet, no business or individual could possibly function without it. But the World Wide Web is not without its flaws. The online threat environment has intensified in the last few years due an increasing pool of sophisticated fraudsters and the availability of new technologies that has facilitated such criminal activities. In this article, Geoff Haydon, Vice President, Asia Pacific, RSA, The Security Division of EMC, identifies the Top 8 forms of online attacks to watch out for in 2010.

Emails have long been one of the most prevalent vectors of attack for cyber criminals to spread worms, Trojans and viruses. Today, of all the malware distributed globally, 12% are passed through emails, reports NSS Labs in January 2009. While emails themselves are rarely malicious and can be open and read safely by users, email attachments may hide malicious programs that, if unleashed, can compromise a machine.

The rapid evolution of Web 2.0 services and the parallel world of cybercrime is driving a revolution in the price that criminals charge each other for user credentials, says data security specialist Imperva.

An annual study conducted by the Ponemon Institute found that last year was no exception to the steadily growing rate of costs due to data breaches.

On the heels of news last week that Google and Adobe were attacked by hackers, supposedly from China, reports have come in that Yahoo was one of more than 30 companies hit by a sophisticated online attack designed to steal intellectual property and collect information on Chinese dissidents.