14 DAY TRIAL // You know it - the Web has changed a lot. Many things have occurred since the ARPAnet first appeared and now we have Web 2.0. And as always, more features means more vulnerabilities which equals more/worse threats.
The landscape has changed a lot and so has hacker mentality. Also, viruses have become worse and now, the Net is a dangerous place if you are not protected with security software. Research over the last three years by WatchGuard's Rapid Response team has tracked attack patterns and identified five key threats: DNS system attacks, virus and malware, buggy web applications, hacking for profit and the end user themselves. I don't think that anyone thought of this being possible when the ancestor of today's web first appeared. Who knew that malware would evolve from the simple ELK Cloner to what we're facing today?
Here's what we're dealing with - phishing attacks, malware, lazy admins (that give users too many rights so they don't get called too often), insecure sites and attacks against DNS servers. And this is just the tip of the iceberg...
"The increase in the range and sophistication of threats, combined with more complex architectures and the move to Web 2.0, will make the job of securing enterprise networks more difficult than ever before," says Steve Fallin, director of WatchGuard's Rapid Response team. "Other factors putting organizations at more risk include increased levels of remote access, continued poor user behavior and the shift from hobby hackers to organized crime."
"The last few years have seen a considerable change in the nature of security challenges faced by the internet enabled enterprise," says Fallin. "As we are now on the verge of widespread adoption of Web 2.0, with its promise of the collaborative enterprise, it is vital to adapt enterprise security to the address the threats posed by a Web 2.0 world." And I don't think that things are going to stop here. The more advanced we'll get the more dangerous the Web will be. One of the other days I was thinking that if we had flawless programs there would be no more vulnerabilities to exploit and the Internet would be safer, but then I stopped dreaming and realized that there is no such thing as the perfect program.