Fewer than half of small and midsize businesses actively enforce social network security policies, finds Panda Security.

By Mathew J. Schwartz
Information Week

One-third of all small and midsize businesses (SMBs) have been infected by malware or viruses that spread via social networks — most often via Facebook, followed by YouTube and Twitter. As a result, 35% experienced a financial loss.

Those findings come from a survey, conducted by Panda Security, of 315 IT personnel who have responsibility for setting or enforcing network policies at companies with between 15 and 1,000 employees. None of the surveyed organizations used Panda’s products.

According to Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher at Panda Security, “social media is now ubiquitous among SMBs because of its many obvious business benefits, yet these tools don’t come without serious risks.”

For example, the survey found that social networks are responsible for a sizeable number of “human error” privacy violations. In fact, 23% of organizations reported losing sensitive data via social networks thanks to their employees. Facebook was the most typical social networking channel for privacy violations, followed by Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Still, in this day and age, it’s nearly impossible for a business to not have a social networking presence. Indeed, the study found that 78% of businesses surveyed use social media tools, with businesses having active accounts most often with Facebook (70%), followed by Twitter (44%), YouTube (32%), and LinkedIn (23%). The social networks were most often used for personal use, but even so, roughly half of firms also used them for research, competitive intelligence, customer service, and marketing. About one-third also use them for sales purposes.

Furthermore, from a security standpoint, the news from the survey is far from bleak. “While a relatively high number of SMBs have been infected by malware from social sites, we were pleased to see that the majority of companies already have formal governance and education programs in place,” said Correll.

A majority — 64% — of SMBs have security education programs covering social networks. However, only 57% of SMBs currently have a security policy governing the use of social networking, and 81% of that group employs personnel to actively enforce those policies. This means that only 46% of organizations actively enforce social networking security policies.

Interestingly, 25% of SMBs simply block all social media during working hours through a gateway appliance (65%) and/or through a hosted web security service (45%). But during non-work hours, 69% of SMBs allow employees to use social networking tools on corporate computers.

Computer Clarity

PandaLabs, the anti-malware laboratory of Panda Security, has released its forecast of computer threat trends for the coming year.

More clouds on the security horizon

Welcome to the cloud. In 2007, we launched our first product which took advantage of the cloud, now in 2009 all our products use it and we have launched the first 100% cloud-based antivirus: Panda Cloud Antivirus. We have also seen this year how other major security vendors have followed our steps and taken to the cloud. 2010 will be the year in which all anti-malware companies wanting to offer real-time protection will have to follow suit. And those that don’t will be out of the game.

An avalanche of malware

The amount of malware in circulation will continue to grow exponentially. The greater speed delivered by cloud-based technologies, such as Panda’s Collective Intelligence, will force malware creators to generate even more threats in order to evade detection and elimination. Once again malware will be designed almost exclusively for financial gain, and we can expect to see many new fake antiviruses (rogueware), bots and banker Trojans.

Social engineering

Cyber-criminals will again be focusing on social engineering techniques to infect computers, particularly those targeting search engines (BlackHat SEO) and social networks, along with ‘drive-by-download’ infections from Web pages.

As the football World Cup takes place in South Africa, we can also expect to see significant amounts of malware related to this event: false ticket offers, junk mail, etc. It is always a good idea to take a suspicious view of any messages related with current affairs and large events such as this.

In the case of social networks, there have already been many examples of worms and Trojans targeting Twitter, Facebook, etc. Malware creators will continue to be drawn to these types of platforms used by so many people.

Windows 7

Windows 7 will have a major impact on malware development: where Windows Vista hardly caused a ripple, Windows 7 will make waves. One of the main reasons is the widespread market acceptance of this new OS, and as practically all new computers are coming with Windows 7 64-bit, criminals will be busy adapting malware to the new environment. It may take time, but we expect to see a major shift towards this platform over the next two years.

Cell phones

Will 2010 be the year of malware for cell phones? Several security companies have been warning for some time that malware is soon to affect cell phones in much the same way as it affects PCs. Well, we hate to rain on their parade, but 2010 will not be the year of malware for cell phones.

The PC is a homogenous platform, with 90% of the world’s computers running Windows on Intel, meaning that any new Trojan, worm, etc. has a potential victim pool of 90% of the world’s computers. The cell phone environment is much more heterogeneous, with numerous vendors using different hardware and different operating systems.

Applications are sometimes not even compatible from one OS version to another. So it is once again unlikely that 2010 will see widespread targeting of cell phones by malware. In any event, this year will witness many changes in the world of mobile telephony with more smartphones offering practically the same features as a PC; the emergence of Google Phone –first phone sold directly by Google without tying users to specific operators-; the increasing popularity of Android, not to forget the success of the iPhone. If in some years there are only two or three popular platforms, and if people begin to operate financial transactions from their cell phones, then maybe we could talk about a potential breeding ground for cyber-crime.

Mac

Mac: has the danger arrived? Mac’s market share has increased in recent years. Although the number of users has yet to reach the critical mass required to make it as profitable as PCs for cyber-criminals, it is nevertheless becoming more attractive. Mac is used just as PCs are to access social networks, email, the Internet… and these are the main malware distribution systems used by cyber-criminals. Consequently, Mac is no longer a safe haven against malware. These criminals can easily distinguish whether a system is Mac, and they have malware designed especially to target this OS. In 2009 we have already seen numerous attacks, and there are more to come in 2010.

The Cloud

Cloud-based services are not just used for security. We are all using more services delivered from the cloud, often without realizing. Who doesn’t use Hotmail or Gmail as their email service, or Flickr to store photos? But cloud-based services are not limited solely to storage, they are also used for processing data. The cloud is a tool that can help save considerable costs for companies, and as such is rapidly growing in popularity. This makes attacks on cloud-based infrastructure/services far more likely.

Cyber war

Although this term is more associated with science fiction than the real-world, it’s a phrase we are about to start hearing more often. Throughout 2009, governments around the world including the United States, the UK and Spain, have expressed concern about the potential for cyber-attacks to affect economies or critical infrastructure. We also saw this year how several Web pages in the United States and South Korea were the subject of attacks, with suspicion –as yet unapproved- pointing at North Korea. In 2010 we can expect to see similar politically-motivated attacks.

Computer Clarity

According to Panda Security and PandaLabs, the global leaders in computer security, “Rogueware consists of any kind of fake software solution that attempts to steal money from PC users by luring them into paying to remove nonexistent threats.”  They also point out the following facts:

• Rogueware attacks generate approximately $34 million per month for cybercriminals
• Each month rogueware infects approximately 35 million computers
• Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Digg, are used to spread rogueware
• Eastern Europe is the source of the majority of cybercriminals
• Rogueware is difficult to detect because it changes quickly

Because of these facts, your computer will encounter rogueware and your antivirus might not catch it.  So, what does a rogueware attack look like?  A window appears on your computer screen announcing the presence of viruses on your computer and offering to remove them if you pay them $40-$90.  If you don’t, the program starts hiding different windows controls and continues to warn you with popup windows until you do pay.  Then they will wait a random period of time before they do it again.  Once the rogueware is installed, it can be very difficult to remove, so it is best to catch and stop the installation attempt.  Fortunately this is very easy.  Rogueware tries to look like an antivirus.  You must know who your antivirus company is and don’t trust any other antivirus warning.  When you see a warning, identify what program is issuing the warning.  If it is not your antivirus software, then it is a rogue security officer trying to gain entry into your computer.

When this occurs on your computer you must close the window without following any of its instructions and without touching the window.   You must use the taskbar button below that represents the window, right click it, then hit close.  This should close the window, but if it does not, press and hold your power button on your computer.  You may lose any unsaved work, but it is better than removing the rogueware after the infection.

Rogueware and other types of malware threats are extremely prolific on the internet.  Antivirus companies are trying franticly to keep up with the threat, but only one is on top of it.  Panda Security makes and distributes the best computer security solutions and PandaLabs discovers the threats and writes the antivirus updates before the rest of the antivirus companies even know about it.  Several teams, each specialized in a specific type of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, phishing, spam, etc), work 24/7 to provide global coverage. To achieve this, they also have the support of TruPrevent® Technologies, which act as a global early-warning system made up of strategically distributed sensors to neutralize new threats and send them to PandaLabs for in-depth analysis. According to Av.Test.org, PandaLabs is currently the fastest laboratory in the industry in providing complete updates to users. According to my own test, Panda Security Solutions are the best available.

Computer Clarity