McAfee Labs predicts Geolocation in 2011

href="http://www.dqweek.com/Intel-to-acquire-McAfee">McAfee
unveiled its 2011 Threat
Predictions report, outlining the top threats that researchers at
McAfee Labs foresee for the coming year. The list comprises 2010's
most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google's
Android, Apple's iPhone, foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X
platform, which are all expected to become major targets for
cybercriminals.

McAfee Labs also predicts that
politically motivated attacks will be on the rise, as more groups are
expected to repeat the WikiLeaks paradigm. “We've seen
significant advancements in device and social network adoption,
placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing
the most,” said Vincent Weafer, Senior VP, McAfee Labs. “These
platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of
time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in
vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss,” he said.

McAfee Labs Threat
Predictions for
2011:

Exploiting Social
Media: URL-shortening
services

Social media sites such as Twitter and
Facebook have created the movement toward an 'instant' form of
communication, a shift that will completely alter the threat
landscape in 2011. Of the social media sites that will be most
riddled with cybercriminal activity, McAfee Labs expects those with
URL-shortening services will be at the forefront. The use of
abbreviated URLs on sites like Twitter makes it easy for
cybercriminals to mask and direct users to malicious websites. With
more than 3,000 shortened URLs per minute being generated, McAfee
Labs expects to see a growing number used for spam, scamming and
other malicious purposes.

Exploiting Social
Media: Geolocation
services

Locative services such as foursquare,
Gowalla and Facebook Places can easily search, track and plot the
whereabouts of friends and strangers. In just a few clicks,
cybercriminals can see in real time who is tweeting, where they are
located, what they are saying, what their interests are, and what
operating systems and applications they are using. This wealth of
personal information on individuals enables cybercriminals to craft a
targeted attack. McAfee Labs predicts that cybercriminals will
increasingly use these tactics across the most popular social
networking sites in 2011.

Mobile: Usage is
rising in the
workplace, and so will attacks

Threats on mobile devices have so far
been few and far between, as 'jailbreaking' on the iPhone and the
arrival of Zeus were the primary mobile threats in 2010. With the
widespread adoption of mobile devices in business environments,
combined with historically fragile cellular infrastructure and slow
strides toward encryption, McAfee Labs predicts that 2011 will bring
a rapid escalation of attacks and threats to mobile devices, putting
user and corporate data at very high risk.

Sophistication Mimics
Legitimacy: Your
next computer virus could be from a friend

Malicious content disguised as personal
or legitimate e-mails and files to trick unsuspecting victims will
increase in sophistication in 2011. 'Signed' malware that imitates
legitimate files will become more prevalent, and 'friendly fire,' in
which threats appear to come from your friends but in fact are
viruses such as Koobface or VBMania, will continue to grow as an
attack of choice by cybercriminals. McAfee Labs expects these attacks
will go hand in hand with the increased abuse of social networks,
which will eventually overtake e-mail as a leading attack vector.