McAfee 2013 Threats Predictions: NFC, HTML5 and Windows 8 threats expected

McAfee today released its 2013 Threat Predictions report which highlights the top cyber threats it sees for the new year.

Mobile threats

The report highlights malware shopping sprees, NFC worms and update blocking as some key things for consumers to look out for.

Malware shopping sprees involves a malware purchasing apps from an app store without user permission. An example is Trojan horse program Android/Marketpay.A. This can usually be used by the malware authors to purchase other apps developed by them, putting money in their pockets.

As phones with near-field communications (NFC) become more common, users are also beginning to adopt its use as a digital wallet. McAfee sees this as an opportunity for cyber-thieves who can create mobile worms with NFC capabilities to propagate via the “bump and infect” method to steal money.

As telcos can recognise malware and push updates to their subscribers’ phones, these mobile malware have to prevent updates to remain effective. This can be done by putting an app on a store that hides a malware download which locks the phone from communicating with the telcos.

Malware

McAfee sees the increase in cyber-threats coinciding with the increase in availability of malware kits in the underground market. This year, the online security company sees a good chance that ransomware kits will take the lead from malware kits, as the first ransomware kits area being marketing in the underground.

These ransomware kits allow cybercriminals to hijack the users ability to access data, communicate or use the system. Victims will either have to face losing their data or paying a ransom to regain access.

As McAfee observed, currently the available ransomware kits attack only Windows system, but this may change soon. Attackers have also developed ransomware for mobile devices, as more business transactions are being done on mobile devices.

With the latest release of Windows 8, McAfee expects Windows 8-specific malware to be available quicker than Windows 7-specific malware due to the underground market for attack and malware kits being more competitive. Although Windows 8 is a more secure operating system, often the attacks target the user and not the operating system. McAfee advises users to stay vigilant and watch out for phishing scams.

Big-scale attacks

Destructive payloads in malware that cause as much damage as possible have been used less as attackers prefer to take control of their victims’ computers instead. However, McAfee sees this type of attacks growing in 2013. What’s worrying is that companies appear to be vulnerable to such attacks.

Citadel to be the Trojan of choice

Citadel is like to become the Trojan of choice among cybercriminals due to its rich functionality of Zeus and dedicated support. The recent release of Citadel Rain allows the Trojan to dynamically retrieve configuration files, enabling attackers to send a targeted payload to either a single victim or a selection of victims.

HTML 5

Today, about 74 percent of users in North America, 72 percent in Asia, and 83 percent in Europe use browsers that supports most of HTML5 features. With this growth in adoption, McAfee predicts a reduction in exploits focused on plug-ins and more focus on finding security holes in HTML5.

View the full McAfee 2013 Threats Predictions report for more details on this year’s predictions.

Image Credits: Legal Bilisim

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