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Security Threats Won't Let Up This Year: Page 4 of 6

Many security experts believe the writer or writers behind the Sobig.F virus were actually spammers or working with spammers, looking to use that virus to infect thousands of machines that could then be used to anonymously blast millions of spam messages. The technique keeps spammers' identities secret and can also sidestep black lists used by Spam filters. Sobig.F's success will likely lead to similar outbreaks.

Another relatively new and growing danger: peer-to-peer networks and instant messaging. Expect virus writers and snoops to start exploiting the popularity of peer-to-peer networks, such as Grokster, Kazaa, and Morpheus, and instant-messaging services offered by America Online and others.

Any company with employees using peer-to-peer file-sharing networks is inviting trouble. Consider the following experiment conducted by Bruce Hughes, director of malicious-code research at TruSecure Corp.'s ICSA Labs. He set up a crawler program on Kazaa and other peer-to-peer networks, scanning for popular file types using keywords such as sex and antivirus. Hughes says 45% of the files he downloaded contained malicious applications. "If you're downloading files from these networks, you're going to get infected with something," he warns.

Almost all the big attacks last year were aimed at Microsoft PC and server software. This year, new threats will appear aimed at emerging operating systems and devices, such as Linux, handheld devices, and smart cell phones. "We'll see a cell-phone virus. It's almost a certainty," says David Perry, global director of education for antivirus and content security firm Trend Micro Inc. "We'll also probably see a virus designed to spread over wireless LANs. We just don't know when; it could be this year or it could be five years."

Linux is more susceptible to attack because it offers increased functionality and more users are using a graphical interface such as Lindows, which makes Linux easier to run, says TruSecure's Hughes.