Security Incidents In Cloud, Mobile Sectors Grow

Trend Micro Inc., the cloud security provider, has announced the availability of its 2Q 2011 Threat Roundup report on the most dangerous threats and trends facing computing security today.

The most notable trends in the second quarter of 2011 are the proliferation of Android malware and cloud-computing-related data breaches at a magnitude never seen before. Also, social networking scams became even more sophisticated, and cybercriminals continued to instigate a myriad of malicious schemes.

“At the rate cybercriminals are launching attacks, targeted or not, there’s just no telling how many more companies and users will succumb to the dangers these pose before the year ends,” said Raimund Genes, CTO, Trend Micro.

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Summary of Top Attacks, Breaches and Exploits and Scams

• The Epsilon breach in April opened everyone’s eyes to advanced persistent threats and the consequences of having their email accounts compromised, leading to information and identity theft.

• Making headlines several times in 2Q, Trend Micro researchers proved how risky viewing Webmail accounts at work and downloading Trojanised apps are to users and businesses alike.

• Microsoft was the number one vendor target for exploit attacks, with a total of 96. Google and Adobe held the second and third posts with 65 and 62 attacks respectively.

• Apple, which led all vendor targets in Q1, was not in the Top 10 this time. The number of Mac and Apple mobile device exploits is growing steadily though.

• Due to Android OS’s increasing popularity, it faced at least three attacks in 2Q. Like previously discovered Android malware, all three posed as either fake apps or updates to trick users into executing them, albeit varying targets.

• Facebook experienced several attacks in the form of spammed malicious links through various Facebook tools or as “copy-and-paste” scripts; all these led to data theft.