Mr. William Tan
Article by
Mr. William Tan
Regional Country Manager, Thailand and Vietnam, Blue Coat Systems Inc.
Make sure employee online holiday shopping doesn’t become an enterprise security issue
This season, with online sales expected to reach $44.7 billion, perhaps shoppers can learn a few lessons from the Ghosts of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol.
As the holiday shopping season gets underway, most Internet users won’t benefit from a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past to warn them of the dangers of online shopping – a perennial target of cybercriminals attempting to steal confidential financial and personal information from unsuspecting shoppers.
For those same online shoppers, a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Present would be sure to bring surprises. Two-thirds of all known web malware was discovered in 2008 alone, and that growth has continued unabated in 2009. The first half of 2009 saw a whopping 585% increase in phishing scams that targeted more than 300 recognized brands. Now, hackers are optimizing popular search engine results (Zhu Zhu pets anyone?) to trick users into unknowingly downloading malware.
Blue Coat Systems Inc
Considering that more than half of all employees use their work laptops to shop online, this becomes an enterprise security issue. What happens when these employees bring malware back to the corporate network?
Desktop anti-virus with daily updates and firewalls with packet-layer inspection provide protection from some types of network threats. Yet they don’t provide the full protection needed to guard against dynamic web attacks that infect popular websites or phishing scams that take advantage of inherent user trust in legitimate sites, well-known brands and search engines. Drive-by malware downloads and fake alerts (such as “Your Flash player is out of date”) are now the leading vectors for infections, and to protect against those, enterprises need an additional layer of web protection.
To augment their traditional defenses, enterprises should consider a Web security solution that combines web content categorization and deep threat analysis technologies to identify emerging and evolving threats and protects users from those threats regardless of location.
Today, the average website is made up of a dozen sub domains and URL links from servers that can be easily compromised by cyber criminals. To ensure the best protection, enterprises need full visibility into all new and unknown web links through real-time URL analysis and categorization. In turn, that intelligence must be immediately available to all users without requiring updates or other software downloads for protection. With this on-demand security intelligence, enterprise users are protected at home, on the road or on the corporate network.
This holiday season don’t wait for a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to tell you of the damage sustained by these threats to your enterprise web security. Make a Christmas list that includes a next-generation Web defense for your 2010 budget. This year’s malware and phishing epidemic makes it unlikely you’ll get a “Bah Humbug” in return.
Press Release By:
Kachaporn Sanchat (Cin)
PC & Associates Consulting Co., Ltd.
35/123-125 Moo3, Phaholyothin Rd.,
Anusaowaree, Bangkhen,
Bangkok 10220 THAILAND
TEL.: (66-2) 971-3711
Mobile: (087) 117-5998
E-mail: kachaporn@pc-a.co.th
kachaporn.pca@gmail.com
News Source:
PC & Associates Consulting
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