By Anuradha Shukla
MIS Asia
September 1, 2010

SHENZHEN, CHINA - Global security threats have increased significantly, having reached record highs in the first six months of 2010, according to IBM’s X-Force 2010 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report.

New vulnerabilities

In the report, IBM’s X-Force Research and Development team said that 4,396 new vulnerabilities were recorded from January to June of 2010—an increase of 36 per cent from the first half of 2009. About 55 per cent of the companies reporting these problems also indicated that they did not have a vendor-supplied patch.

Of these threats, Web application vulnerabilities were the most commonplace; more than half of the publicly disclosed threats, 55 percent, were caused by these vulnerabilities.

Secondly, covert attacks or Advanced Persistent Threats, which are designed to be undetectable by traditional security, have increased in sophistication and are often hidden within PDF and JavaScript formats. 37 per cent more activity involving PDF attachments was observed in the first half of 2010.

The report also added that phishing activity has significantly declined, over 82 per cent as compared to 2009, but financial institutions are still a primary target, having been targeted by 49 per cent of all phishing emails.

Key trends

The X-Force Report also identifies key trends that are gaining ground. Virtualisation and cloud computing are noted as important security topics. Thirty-five percent of vulnerabilities that affect virtualisation systems were found to impact the hypervisor, meaning that attackers may be able to gain control of more than one virtual system running on the same machine.

For organisations seeking to switch to cloud computing, the team says that it is important to start by determining the security requirements of workloads to be hosted in the cloud in order to stave off security risks.

Alex Li, brand manager of Tivoli, Software Group, IBM China/Hong Kong Limited, said that looking at unfolding trends such as these involving threat dynamics makes it crucial to prepare for the future. Li said that threats are on the rise, but the industry has become far more vigilant about reporting them, underscoring the increased focus on better security solutions and risk management.

IBM’s X-Force team is a premier security research group. Since 1997, it has taken note of and analysed upwards of 50,000 vulnerability disclosures, and has published a mid-year Trend and Risk Report that helps clients learn about and avoid security threats.

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