Brussels, 19/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - The most frequent cyber threats are targeted attacks, threats to mobile networks, and social media identity theft carried out over Cloud services, according to the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA). On 19 September, ENISA presented its list of top cyber threats - as a forerunner to its interim report on cyber threats, which is to appear at the end of 2013. In general terms, ENISA notes an upsurge in threats to infrastructure - with cyber attacks today being one of the six main reasons for crashes in the domain of telecommunications infrastructure. “This short interim report informs security stakeholders as early as possible about developments in cyber threats, so that they are able to take counter measures”, said ENISA's executive director, Udo Helmbrecht.
The short study analyses the results of 50 reports. Its main conclusions are (1) a growing use of advanced methods to implement attack techniques that are non-traceable and difficult to take down. Mobile technology is increasingly exploited by cyber criminals. Threats of all kinds that were encountered in the more traditional arena of IT will affect mobile devices and the services available on these platforms; (2) wide expansion of mobile devices leads to an upsurge in abuse based on knowledge or attack methods targeting social media; (3) the co-existence of malware and cyber-hacking tools and services with digital currencies (for example, bitcoins) and anonymous payment methods opens up new avenues for fraudsters; (4) there is a real risk of large impact events when attacks combining various types of threat are launched. (IL/transl.fl)