Lin says attacks have changed and involved more cybercrime than in the best
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) – In the second last session on Wednesday at HostingCon 2011, Michael Lin, VP of Symantec (www.symantec.com) product management talked about the top threats for hosting providers in today’s market, and how threats have changed in recent years.
He emphasized the small and medium-sized customer because small businesses need security to be easily managed and simple.
Lin says that hackers used to try to make a name for themselves, but now cybercrime is a huge driver of malicious attacks on hosting providers and the Internet at large.
The difference, according to Lin, is attacks today are more about cyber warfare, cyber espionage and are highly sophisticated.
Lin says a lot of the early attacks were widely known and publicized, wheras now a lot of the attacks happening today are meant to be silent.
He used the attack Stuxnet as an example of the sophistication of attacks today.
Stuxnet started as a malicious code on a thumb drive, and ultimately hacked power and nuclear facilities.
The attack hit every layer of the network environment and used malware that went into the key store of a computer to sign the malware to make it look legitimate.
“The methods of attack are getting so sophisticated that they can launch these attacks against nuclear power plants, they can launch these attacks against hosting providers,” Lin says.
In addition to high levels of sophistication, today’s attacks have complex environments, high amounts of data and increased cost of incidents.
About 90 percent of the attacks involve organized crime targeting corporate information, Lin says.
Approximately 40 percent of attacks are happening from insiders within companies, mostly unwillingly, he says.
When an attack is launched in your network, it is no longer homogeneous environment and can effect phones and tablets, for example.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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