Growing Popularity of Cloud Computing Givng Target to Cybercriminals - - A Study by Trend Micro, Company Specialized in Internet Security

The growing popularity of cloud computing and virtualisation among companies could lead to them being the next possible target of cyber criminals. According to a report brought out by Trend Micro, a company that specialises in internet security, cloud computing, while offering significant benefits and cost-savings, moves servers outside the traditional security perimeter making it easy for the reach of cyber criminals.

The industry already witnessed 'danger' or 'sidekick' due to the cloud-based server failure that caused major data outages in November 2009, highlighting cloud-computing risks that cybercriminals are likely to abuse.

According to the report, cyber criminals will either be manipulating the connection to the cloud or attacking the data centre and cloud itself. The next-generation protocol designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force, Internet Protocol (v. 6), is still in the experimentation stages of replacing the current (IPv4), now 20 years old. “As users start to explore the new protocol so will cyber criminals. Possible avenues for abuse include new covert channels,” said Amit Nath, country manager, India and SAARC, Trend Micro.

“The quality and quantity of data posted openly by most trusting users on their profile pages, combined with interaction clues are more than enough for cybercriminals to stage identity thefts and targeted social engineering attacks. The situation will worsen in 2010 with high-profile personalities suffering from online impersonators or stolen bank accounts,” the report says.