Blue Coat Technology Brief Sample

Electronic items from digital picture frames to memory sticks to Xboxes to other video games are open to cyber criminal attack. The problem has become so serious, in fact, that the US Army recently issued an order banning the use of USB thumb drives in an effort to stop the spread of malware. 7 Botnets will continue to become a more serious problem. More than 80% of spam today comes from botnets—networks of compromised home and corporate computers that have been infected with malware and are used to send a variety of threats.

Botnets have the dual advantage (to cyber criminals) of allowing malicious content to be sent in a highly distributed manner and they offer a highly lucrative source of income through their rental to those who manage spam and malware campaigns. Social networking sites will become a more dangerous source of malware.

Social networking sites allow you to find old friends and new malware. The popularity of these tools is being exploited by cyber criminals to spread malware using social engineering techniques akin to those exploited by criminals who distribute their attacks through instant messaging systems. Facebook has been a key victim of these attacks, but expect business-oriented social networking tools to become victims of these attacks, as well.