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Burgeoning Web 2.0 platforms will figure significantly in the IT threat landscape in the coming year, say researchers for security vendor Websense.
The company anticipates hackers will use profile information and the demographics of specific social networking sites to better target their attacks. And the proliferation of social networking applications, widgets and mash-ups increases the likelihood of "weak link" attacks on vulnerable sites and content.
Those are two of the trends the company outlined in its Top 10 list of security threats for 2008.
Attackers are relying on "transitive trust," says Stephan Chenette, manager of the San Diego, Calif., vendor's security lab. Ads, mash-ups and widgets that are appearing on trusted sites are hosted in another location. "That site isn't responsible" for the code, which could draw the user to a malicious site.
"A lot more spam messages are claiming to be from Facebook and other social networking sites," Chenette says. Because...