With the growing diversity of operating systems among companies, as well as the growing use of mobile devices, cybercriminals should have a very profitable 2011. Their tactic will be to put a new spin on social engineering by way of “malware campaigns,” by bombarding recipients with email that drop Trojan downloaders.  

All these will largely be made possible because of the Internet. Already, Trend Micro threat researchers have found that more than 80 percent of the top malware use the Web to arrive on users’ systems.

2011 will bring about a growth in exploits for alternative operating systems, programs and Web browsers, combined with tremendous growth in the use of application vulnerabilities.

Cloud computing and virtualization—while offering significant benefits and cost-savings—move servers outside the traditional security perimeter and expand the playing field for cybercriminals. It likewise increases the security demands on cloud service providers.

Trend Micro expects more Proof of Concept (PoC) attacks against cloud infrastructure and virtualized systems to show up in 2011. Knowing that the desktop monoculture will disappear, cybercriminals will test how to successfully infiltrate and misuse a monoculture in the cloud.

Social engineering will continue to play a big role in the propagation of threats. Trend Micro believes that there will be fewer infiltrated websites in 2011.

Thanks to easy-to-use underground toolkits, mid-sized companies will continue to be a target in cyber-espionage. In 2010, the use of underground toolkits like XWM exploded, making it easier to target particular types of organizations.

In 2011, it is very likely that cybercriminals will increasingly target security vendors’ brands in order to cause confusion and insecurity among users.