With the New Year quickly approaching, lists of IT predications for 2012 are rolling in. The latest comes from cloud security specialist Trend Micro Inc., which, quite assumedly, issued a number of cyber-security-related predictions for the enterprise.
The most interesting of the predictions are related to the mobile market, an area of great concern for many in the security space. The proliferation of smartphones and tablets has given hackers and malware purveyors good reason to steer their attention away from PCs and toward mobile devices.
Trend Micro believes that these efforts will take a major step forward in 2012, with Android mobile devices being particularly attractive targets for hackers. With its current app distribution model and its open source nature, Android sets up as an ideal breeding ground for cyber attacks, says Trend Micro.
The tech firm also suggests that mobile users will need to look out for more than just malicious applications when they are surfing app stores like the Android Market.
"We expect cybercriminals to go after legitimate apps as well," Trend Micro noted in a statement. "They will likely find either vulnerabilities or coding errors that can lead to user data theft or exposure. Compounding this further is the fact that very few app developers have a mature vulnerability handling and remediation process, which means the window of exposure for these flaws may be longer."
Trend Micro also joins a number of security experts in predicting that hackers will soon begin targeting supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, which control power plants and many other public utilities around the U.S.
The prediction comes on the heels of a recent report that large-scale industrial control system attacks are highly feasible. Consulting firms have recently found multiple vulnerabilities in power plants, correctional facilities and other U.S.-based institutions that rely on industrial controllers.
Fears escalated last month when claims were made that an Illinois public water utility was hacked, causing a pump to fail, but the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security later dismissed those reports.
Click here to check out the rest of the security predictions.
Beecher Tuttle is a MobilityTechzone contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Chris DiMarco
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