Kaspersky Security Bulletin 2012 - Malware Evolution

This is a great  article by security vendor Kaspersky.  www.kaspersky.com  This was released December 5.  This is Kaspersky Lab’s annual threat analysis report. It  covers the major issues faced by corporate and individual users   because of malware, potentially harmful programs, crimeware, spam, phishing, and other different types of hacker activity.  What’s refreshing is that Kaspersky looks  back at what they thought would be the major security stories for the year and what actually were the stories. Look for other vendors to be coming out with their predictions in the next eight weeks.

Kaspersky 2012 Predictions

1.     The continued rise of hacktivist groups.
2.     The growth of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) incidents
3.     The dawn of cyber-warfare and more powerful nation states jostling for dominance through cyber-espionage campaigns.
4.     Attacks on software and gaming developers such as Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle and Sony.
5.     More aggressive actions from law enforcement agencies against traditional cybercriminals.
6.     An explosion of Android threats.
7.     Attacks on Apple’s Mac OS X platform.

You’ll have to go to the article for details on  to see what they felt the  top ten real stories were! 

1.  Flashback hits Mac OSX
2. Nation state espionage cyber campaigns
3. Android threats
4. LinkedIn, Dropbox and Gamigo leaks
5. Adobe certificate threats and  the omnipresent APT (Advanced Persistent Threat)

The third one - the growth of Android malware.  This growth was exponential in 2012 as can be seen by the chart below. Click on it for a clearer view.

Kaspersky Security Forecast  for 2013

The article also discusses their forecast for the top issues that will head the security landscape in 2013. The first five:

1. Targeted attacks and cyber-espionage
2. The onward march of “hacktivism’
3. Nation state sponsored cyber attacks
4. The use of legal surveillance tools
5. Cloudy with a chance of malware

They have six more and even use the word “dude” in the article.  I would have thought that would say “друг”.  For those who haven’t had Russian, “droog”.

Check out the article.  Great reading.  Many companies don’t look back at their predictions.  Bravilna to them!

 http://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792254/Kaspersky_Security_Bulletin_2012_Malware_Evolution#1

The report was prepared by the Global Research & Analysis Team (GReAT) in conjunction with Kaspersky Lab’s Content & Cloud Technology Research and Anti-Malware Research divisions.