“In 2008, Internet users are likely to see more sophisticated attacks as organised cybercriminals step up their efforts to steal digital assets from social networking site users,” Grisoft chief research officer Roger Thompson.
“Social networks are particularly vulnerable because they rely heavily on hyperlinked content, information sharing and the trust of their participants,” Mr Thompson said.
“From the attacks on Facebook and the Major League Baseball Web site to the Alicia Keys’ sites, it’s clear over the past year that incidence of online threats is accelerating.”
Viruses made up about 15 per cent of the threat landscape in 2007, consistent with Grisoft predictions at the end of 2006. But it was phishing scams, backdoor worms, trojans, keyloggers, spyware, adware and other web-based exploits that comprised the majority of threats, the company said.
Mr Thompson said web exploits and web-based social engineering attacks will be among the biggest security threats to users this year.
“Viruses will continue to be a threat, but we’ll also see an explosion of exploits through social engineering and Web 2.0 attacks in 2008,” he said.
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