2007 could be the year of the hacker

SECURITY OUTFITS are dusting off their usual pre-Christmas warnings about what they think hackers will be doing next year.

It is always handy as news just before Christmas is always in short supply and some of the less technical newspapers like to have a good hacker scare story to fill in the space.

According to Reuters, computer hackers will open "a new front" in a multi-billion pound "cyberwar" in 2007, targeting mobile phones, instant messaging and community Web sites such as MySpace.

Dave Rand of Internet security firm Trend Micro is quoted as saying that punters had grown wise to email scams so criminal gangs will find new ways to commit online fraud, sell fake goods or steal corporate secrets.

He said that places like MySpace will be the sorts of areas that are ripe for more exploitation by malware.

Trend is predicting hackers will target people using instant messaging, mobile phones or making telephone calls over the Internet.

Trend does not think that Microsoft's new secure Vista operating system or IE 7 will make much of a difference as this will somehow attract hackers more than XP. McAfee has decided not to bother with the "hackers over the internet" line.

Instead it is warning that spying on businesses will become more sophisticated. Criminals are hiring students to plant as sleepers in companies and huge amounts of data can be removed on small, portable memory sticks, it says.

The warnings are similar to those made in previous years and the good part about them is that they encourage punters to step up the purchase of security software. Punters forget the exact details of the warnings in the post-Christmas party hang-over and PR departments can issue the same warning next year.

More here. µ