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Top Five Security Trends to Impact 2009

WatchGuard announces five trends that are sure to change the online world in 2009.

5. Security and Compliance Collide -- Citing high profile examples of 100M pilfered credit card accounts and massive chain-store failures to protect customer data, one thing is for certain, politicians will act. Expect to see substantive changes to security and identity protection laws, as well as toughened industry regulations, such as PCI DSS. Additionally, new lawsuits over internet privacy, malicious applications, unauthorized remote use of systems and IT resources, and data leakage will forge new legislation and set new precedents for years to follow.

4. Botnets Become Stealthy -- Although 2008 could be argued as the year of botnets, expect to see 2009 to be the year botnets become stealthy. Learning from last years lessons, botmasters will unleash new botnets of unparalleled sophistication and surprise. Their goal will be botnets of quality, not quantity as botnets become ever
increasingly lucrative.

3. Social Networking Gets Ugly -- Favorite social networking sites will transform into new platforms for launching web-based attacks, as well as for initiating new scams, phishing ploys and other tricks geared to get personal identification information.

2. Increased Attacks Via SSL and HTTPS -- As network systems become more adroit at blocking outside attacks and malware, criminals are becoming more skilled at delivering malicious payloads into networks. What used to be safe and secure, SSL and HTTPS, are now fertile fields for seeding these new attacks.

1. The Web Puts Everyone at Risk -- No longer will porn, gambling or other opprobrious sites host the usual hangouts for malware, spyware or other malicious applications. Instead, consumers will face new threats from trusted domains and everyday websites as they become silently infected with SQL injections or corrupted to host drive-by downloads. Automated attacks will proliferate across the Web that will impact exposed, vulnerable machines and unwary users not expecting to see their favorite website as a potential threat.