2010 was an attention-grabbing year in the information security industry.  We saw some interesting things such as Google alleged hack by China, Wikileaks and the issues with insider threat and hacktivism, Stuxnet advanced malware implementation and social networking site vulnerabilities as well as our share of zero-day attacks to name a few.  So, what is in store for 2011 you ask?

Well, SecurityOrb.com, has released their top 5 cyber security threat predictions for 2011:

1. Smartphones and Apps

Smartphones are becoming very popular with 25% of Americans reported owning them in October 2010.  The recent holiday and the stores special will sure push that number a lot higher by the next report in 2011.  The threat of theft with these smartphones will disclose personal and confidential information.  In addition, apps with malicious intent will also increase in 2011

2. Unauthorized information disclosure

With sites such as Wikileaks and newly formed spin-offs that will be popping up such as Openleaks and a few others, many people will have options to share internal documentations, personal information will also be released when pertaining to private organizations such as financial and health information.

3. Windows 7

Windows 7 has been out and in all since of the word a success.  We usually see a 12 to 18 months operational period before malware start to really come out.

4. Apple Products

Talking about market share, apple has gains a substantial amount with the latest offering of their products that include the iPad, iPhone, iPod and computer based-systems.  Hackers will be targeting them in 2011.

5. Legacy and Unpatched Systems/Applications

Unfortunately, we have observed a high amount of legacy systems such as Windows XP with SP 1 and SP2, Windows 2000, 2003 SP1 and Mac OS X version 1.4 and below as well as older versions of adobe reader, flash and MS Office applications still in operation.  As we know, hackers will continue to check and exploit old vulnerabilities.

We ask that you be aware of these issues and as always, make sure you have security controls such as host-based firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spyware applications installed, make sure they are updated at all times and use common sense to help protect your information and privacy.