HP: 2011 Showed Attacks Growing More Sophisticated, Severe

A newly published Hewlett-Packard report found that attacks against enterprise and government targets in 2011 were increasingly sophisticated and more severe than in the past. The 2011 Top Cyber Security Risks Report also found that the threat landscape changed due to the increased activity by hacker groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec, as well as the advent of advanced attack techniques that made attacks more successful. HP researchers said the number of vulnerabilities disclosed in a year is no longer indicative of the level of security risks, primarily because there are many undisclosed vulnerabilities and more custom applications, which means hackers must craft one-off, specific exploits or attacks for those sites from which they wish to gather data. The report also found that vulnerability-exploit toolkits’ popularity grew in 2011. The full report is available online. (PhysOrg)(Infosecurity)(2011 Top Cyber Security Risks Report)