Information technology and security: Results of 2011 summed up and cyber forecast made for 2012

“Kaspersky Laboratory” summed up interim results of the virus activity in 2011 and made the cyber forecast for the next year. In the context of the annual event “Virus results and forecasts” the experts of the company gathered and analyzed the most important information on possible dangers in the cyber world for the past 12 months. Virus analytics also noted that their projections of further developments in the cyber world for 2011 have mostly realized.

According to the “Kaspersky Laboratory”, the year of 2011 was remarkable not only by the increase in number but also in quality of cyber threats. In danger were not just individual users but also the corporations. Russian users ran a great amount of danger in social networks and while working in online-banking. This year will stick in memory by multiple DDoS attacks.

According to the “Kaspersky Laboratory” analytics, the year of 2011 was one of the most interesting and meaningful in the entire history of existence of the harmful software for mobile devices. Within the last 12 months the experts discovered almost 4 times more of mobile harmful applications than in the previous seven years.

However, the main subject of informational security in the world in 2011, were target attacks against corporations and government structures.

“On the whole, the cyber attacks in 2011 were developing in accordance to our forecasts. Thus, for instance, the popularity of the Android mobile platform has dramatically increased which was noted by criminals. The number of attacks against corporations and government bodies has increased, the cyber criminals began to apply extraordinary means. The cases of cyber struggles in the small and medium business sector has become more often, – summarized the Director General of the “Kaspersky Laboratory” Eugene Kaspersky. – It is to note, that the situation in the field of defense of corporative users has become paradoxical – they are even less defended than individual users, thus vulnerable for even quite simple attacks”.

According to the forecasts of the “Kaspersky Laboratory” experts, in 2012 there will be new incidents, mostly related to the leaks of data from government agencies. “Target attacks against large corporations and government structures, as well as research institutes will take place in Russia in full measure. The main risk group in our country will be the oil and gas companies, energetic, and mechanical engineering, extractive industry”, - said the chief antivirus expert of  the “Kaspersky Laboratory” Alexander Gostev.