Last year saw a daily average of 1000 new compromised sites, according to a newly released 2010 Threats Roundup report by Trend Micro.
The threat landscape was bad in 2010 and Trend Micro, a global provider of network antivirus and Internet content security software and services, says we should bear in mind the lessons learned from 2010 even as we enter the second quarter of 2011. (See also Cybersecurity Quiz: Know Your Threats.”)
The company especially notes the recent Epsilon breach that has impacted many businesses and consumers.
Epsilon, a large permission-based e-mail marketing provider, had a tough time earlier this month as a number of major brands suffered due to this breach.
This is not a lone case and there was a long list of victims in 2010 due to infamous Acai Berry diet pill-selling sites, KOOBFACE e-mails on Facebook, and so on.
Tips and advice
- Those looking to protect themselves may want to follow the tips and advice provided by Trend Micro that are part of a blog posting by its director for security research and communications for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Rik Ferguson.
- According to Ferguson, businesses should encrypt all sensitive data, make sure that their firewall, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and intrusion detection system (IDS) protect each virtual machine (VM) separately.
- Businesses should only decrypt data within the secure container they established for their virtual machines and ensure they are in control of their encryption keys.
- Small and medium-sized enterprises should use effective solutions to protect their business, standardise company communications and let their customers know about their e-mail and website policies.
- End-users should keep their PC current with the latest software updates and patches, beware of unexpected or strange-looking e-mail and instant messages regardless of sender and beware of Web pages requiring software installation.