Today's Security Challenges
Time spent online by corporate employees is increasing rapidly through new communication tools such as instant messaging (IM) and VoIP and increasing connectivity both in the office and on the move. The value of sensitive personal and corporate information being transmitted online is growing exponentially through online banking and e-commerce. With email security becoming more mature and successful, threats are migrating from the inbox to the browser. Businesses are less well protected from these Web and IM threats, and hackers and criminal gangs are focused on these vectors as the easiest route into the network.
Business communication tools are going beyond email to include IM, RSS, Wikis, blogs, VoIP, on-demand CRM tools and Web 2.0 applications. Criminals are developing blended threats that leverage weaknesses in one communication method to target another, increasing the need for security across systems. Exploits to browser vulnerabilities are evolving at an ever faster rate before traditional signature-based security providers can react, impacting already overstretched corporate IT security officers. Hackers are also getting smarter, and taking advantage of the 'zero-hour'. By timing the bulk of their attacks in the time window before a virus-signature can be released, they are able to propagate with stealth. By the time they have been detected, they have already compromised networks and stolen the information they wanted.
- As essential business tools, Web and IM are now the key targets for hackers and proponents of malware.
- Computer crime is now motivated by financial gain and has become highly organized and increasingly stealthy.
- The nature and scale of the threat is changing and the browser has become one of the biggest points of vulnerability.
- The emergence and evolution of spyware is a visible example of how the threat has changed. Spyware represents the fastest growing area of Web threats.
ScanSafe believes a different approach to Web and IM security is needed.
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