4:15 PM
Assessing the Threatscape
Malware is complex, seemingly everywhere and is often difficult to stop. It knows how to find your data—even on your mobile device and Mac. You can’t ignore your "safe" devices any longer: you need to recognize and stop the threats before they do harm.
Hacking attacks against high-profile organizations were in the spotlight during the first half of 2011. News stories highlighted damaging data loss and exposure of sensitive information and businesses remain on high alert. Meanwhile, web threats—such as fake antivirus and SEO poisoning—continue to be the top vehicle for malware attacks this year. Mac users, once safe from malware, fall victim to attack in 2011. As smartphone adoption skyrockets and social networking explodes, IT departments struggle with decisions around security versus the need to collaboratively share information. The blurring line between professional and personal use of technology means that mobile platforms and social networking continue to pose threats to your business data. Email spam also continues to evolve, as spearphishing has turned into an art.
Since the start of 2011, we've seen 150,000 malware samples every day. That's a unique file almost every half second, and a 60% increase as compared to malware analyzed in 2010. We've also seen 19,000 new malicious URLs each day in the first half of this year. And, 80% of those URLs are legitimate websites that were hacked or compromised.
As always, we continue to track—and where possible, thwart—the latest attack techniques. To stay secure, it's vital to understand how recent threats work. This way you can build the proper defenses to keep malware out and keep your business operations safe and productive.
Read our sample social networking threats chapter, available with the Sophos Security Threat Report Mid-Year 2011.
