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Cyberthreats have become increasingly sophisticated since the
early 1980s, when the first known case of a computer virus was
reported. As recently as a few years ago, the development of
malware (including viruses, worms, and Trojans) presented a
simple intellectual challenge to information technology (IT)
experts to demonstrate the technical skills. Today, cybercrime
has become an organized syndicate reaping financial rewards and
using diverse tools to threaten different platforms in various
countries. No country is safe. Spam has evolved to become a
vehicle disseminating other dangerous malware to perpetrate
online financial fraud, identity or trade-secret theft, among
other risks.
Taking into account newer threats to critical infrastructure
in the financial, health, energy, transportation,
telecommunication, defence and other sectors, the impact of
cyberthreats is becoming ever greater. Further, the risks are
evolving in line with the technologies. For example, one
emerging menace is the shift in strategy by hackers from a
central command-and-control model for controlling botnets to a
peer-to-peer model with a distributed command structure, capable
of spreading to compromised computers located in different
countries. This practice makes it very difficult to pinpoint any
single geographical location as the origin of cyberattacks using
botnets, and consequently makes it more difficult to identify
them and shut them down. This shift in strategy is not just
aimed at delivering courier spam and malware, but can also be
used to disseminate inappropriate content, such as child
pornography, without the knowledge of the hijacked computer
owners that they are hosting and disseminating such content.
Lower entry barriers and
increasing sophistication of cybercrime
Toolkits and applications for phishing, spam, malware,
scareware and snoopware can today be acquired relatively easily
from underground sites or even purchased legally, lowering the
financial and intellectual entry barriers to acquire tools to
facilitate unauthorized access to information and communication
systems to manipulate or destroy them.
Snoopware is going mobile, threatening user privacy through
the possibility of voice/data call monitoring with devastating
consequences, especially for the growing number of corporate
users who rely on their smartphones for confidential discussions
and data exchanges with their corporate IT systems. With the
phenomenal growth in mobile telephony (including smartphones),
together with convergence, which is bringing down the walls
between networks, cyberthreats can now spread easily to all
platforms and to all countries .
As information technology becomes an ever greater part of our
lives, and as ubiquitous connections to the Internet become a
reality, with computers integrated into a growing number of
household appliances, it is increasingly likely that
cyberthreats will spread to new levels and affect us in ways
unimaginable today.
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