Symantec's 2007 review: Data leakage, Vista and spam

Data breaches topped Symantec's list for 2007 claiming "a series of high profile breaches raised the importance of data loss prevention technologies and strategies" throughout the year.

Next, the vendor listed the security hype surrounding the year’s most talked about operating system release -- Microsoft Vista. Even with its additional security features Vista required 16 patches not long after its debut, said Symantec.

Furthermore, spam reached new record levels in 2007 and PDF spam emerged as a new annoyance. Greeting-card spam was also responsible for delivering Storm Worm malware.

Spam is definitely on the rise, according to Robert Pragnall regional product marketing manager in APAC.

“It’s getting to such a point that it’s starting to sway people away from email. They will move to Instant Messaging and it’s a new platform and so the attackers will go there too,” Pragnall said.

“But, it’s certainly fair to say spam is still on the rise and likewise with spam adequate technologies are out there, it’s just a case of embracing them,” he added.

Additionally, Symantec pointed to professional attack kits and their growing availability on the Web. MPack was a big player during the year and phishing toolkits were also popular.

Phishing came in at 5th place continuing to be big in 2007 with an 18 percent increase followed by web based threats.

“One thing we’ve seen this year is that attackers are exploiting trusted entities. You can go to a website that you have been to many times before from a reputable organisation, those websites are being attacked by the attackers. Anybody that goes to a website becomes affected. Without clicking anything, without rolling the mouse over anything,” Pragnall said.

Bots and botnets came in eighth on the list, followed by Web plug-in vulnerabilities such as ActiveX controls.

In ninth place, Symantec placed vulnerabilities that are for Sale such as Wabi Sabi Labi and offer an auction-style system for selling to the highest bidder.

Finally, Virtualisation made big headlines in 2007 with major players going public.

Trends to watch in 2008 include election campaigns on the Web, bot evolution, advanced web threats, mobile platforms, spam and virtual worlds.

computer securitydata leakageit securitysecurityspamvista