Instead, it's the perimeter killers which pose the greatest threat to corporations in the coming year, said Hughes. "We'll definitely see another big event in 2004 that causes at least a billion dollars in damages," he said, alluding to other Slammer- and Blaster-sized attacks still to come.
Like other security analysts who have probed the year's threat patterns, Hughes sees the incredibly shrinking span between a vulnerability and a developed exploit as another of this year's trends likely to be observed again and again in 2004.
Hughes predicted that these so-called 'zero day' attacks -- called that because of the ability of an exploit to appear before a vulnerability is even known, much less patched -- will increase in 2004.
"There are so many vulnerabilities in Linux, Microsoft, and Internet Explorer that haven't been patched yet," he said. "And these are only those we know about. There are a lot more we don't know about. Some hacker is going to release exploit code ahead of the patch and create significant damage to those unprepared."
Other threats which will plague users in 2004, he predicted, will come from peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software, and spyware, utilities for tracking Web usage that often piggyback on free-for-the-downloading software.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
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