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Guest post written by Karim Toubba
Karim Toubba is the vice president of product marketing and strategy for the security business unit at Juniper Networks.
As world economies sputter and stall, for the hacker community these are the salad days. Whether the motivation is notoriety, profitability or corporate espionage, today’s hackers are much more sophisticated and have increased the potential for high rewards and this means great risks to businesses, governments and personal information.
Contributing to these cybercrime tailwinds are the would-be victims themselves and their seemingly endless appetite for access to all information at anytime, anywhere from any device. In meeting customers’ needs, businesses, governments, healthcare institutions and schools have made most data and processes readily accessible online and by extension, vulnerable.
The risks created by portable, always-on smartphones, tablets and other mobile computing devices are extending the attack surfaces that require protection for both consumers and enterprises.
Worse yet, in the haste to “do more faster,” people are more lax and less security minded when using devices. They then use those devices to connect to home and work – effectively creating exploitable conduits – and endangering the assets of employers and online service providers. People connect to unsecured wireless hotspots and download apps with impunity, giving little thought as to whether the app provider is trustworthy. Add to that the frequency that these devices with sensitive information are lost or stolen and the need to better secure and manage these devices becomes evident.
And while the ever-expanding digital footprint is giving hackers a big helping hand, the cybercriminals themselves are investing in the latest technology and focusing on mobile devices more than ever before. From premium text messaging scams to mobile malware and phishing attacks, cybercriminals are increasingly using novel approaches to get “in” to high-value targets.
This confluence of issues has created a perfect storm for hackers.
So what can be done?
To begin, individuals must evolve to be more aware about threats to the devices they carry in order to reverse an alarming trend toward complacency. Consider a recent study conducted by Juniper Networks’ Global Threat Center, which found that mobile devices are being exposed to a record number of security threats, including a 250 percent increase in mobile malware targeting smartphones from 2009 to 2010 as well as a 400 percent increase in Android malware since just last summer.
This exposure is largely self-inflicted. Users purchase smartphones and tablets without inquiring about the security features and often skip right past the settings for device passwords, voice mail passwords and data encryption in favor of setting ring tones and personalizing the device. Users then bring those devices into the workplace without informing IT or inquiring about company-provided – and in many cases subsidized – security technologies and best practices guidelines.
Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Cybercrime-Boom-It-A-Good-xfoftp-1323629778.html
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