Prepare for this year's new threats.

Predicting the future in such a rapidly evolving environment is near impossible. One only needs to count the rate at which new malware appears today compared to five years ago to see how quickly the threat has become more serious. Read Sophos' security threat report to read about the malware trends they predict will be at the forefront in 2009.

OVERVIEW
On 2 November 1988 a 22-year old Cornell University student called Robert Morris released an internet worm capable of exploiting vulnerabilities in the UNIX operating system. It is estimated that it infected 10 percent of the
internet. Twenty years on, the scale of the malware problem has grown astronomically. Today’s internet attacks are organized and designed to steal information and resources from consumers and corporations. Although there have been instances of attacks driven by politics and religion, the main motivation is financial.

The web is now the primary route by which cybercriminals infect computers, mainly due to the fact that increasing numbers of organizations have secured their email gateways. As a consequence, cybercriminals are planting malicious code on innocent websites. This code then simply lies in wait and silently infects visiting computers.

The scale of this global criminal operation has reached such proportions that Sophos discovers one new infected webpage every 4.5 seconds – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In addition, SophosLabs, our global network of threat analysis centers, is sent some 20,000 new samples of suspect code every single day.

2008 proved that malware is more than just a Microsoft problem. Although the sheer number of Windows threats far outweighs attacks against any other platform, cybercriminals are turning their attention to other operating systems such as Apple Macintosh, and vulnerable crossplatform software. This seems likely to continue in 2009, with the increasing popularity of portable devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, Google Android phone and ultramobile netbooks.

It remains paramount that organizations defend themselves at all levels of their business, not just at the email and web gateways. Networks, desktops, laptops and mobile devices must be comprehensively secured to defend against the myriad threats posed by the criminal underground.

Request Your Free Special Report: "Security Threat Report: 2009"

Geographic Eligibility: USA, Canada

2008 at a Glance
Biggest malware threats – SQL injection attacks against
websites and the rise of scareware
New web infections – one new infected webpage
discovered by Sophos every 4.5 seconds
Malicious email attachments – five times more at the
end of 2008 than at the beginning
Spam-related webpages – one new webpage discovered
by Sophos every 15 seconds
New scareware websites – five identified every day
Top malware-hosting country – US with 37 percent
Top spam-relaying continent – Asia with 36.6 percent
Amount of business email that is spam – 97 percent

Visit Sophos Official Website

About Sophos

Sophos enables enterprises all over the world to secure and control their IT infrastructure. Sophos's network access control, endpoint, web and email solutions simplify security to provide integrated defenses against malware, spyware, intrusions, unwanted applications, spam, policy abuse, data leakage and compliance drift.

With over 20 years of experience, Sophos protects over 100 million users in nearly 150 countries with its reliably engineered security solutions and services. Recognized for its high level of customer satisfaction and powerful yet easy-to-use solutions, Sophos has received many industry awards, as well as positive reviews and certifications.

Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK.

More information is available at www.sophos.com

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