2010 was a scary one for consumers, companies and government looking to safeguard their data and their privacy while accessing the Internet for work and pleasure.
As eSecurity Planet reports, this past year featured new and more dangerous security threats than ever before and there’s every reason to expect more of the same in the coming year.
Between the WikiLeaks gaffe, the Stuxnet worm and Operation Aurora, it’s clear the hackers and malware authors are becoming more creative and efficient at pilfering data from a variety of unsecured sources.
Consumers’ infatuation with smartphones and social networking sites combined with enterprises’ willingness to embrace more complicated and security-challenged options like virtualization and cloud computing created numerous new — and old — opportunities for hackers this year.
There was no single miscue or scandal in 2010 that adequately sums up all that’s transpired in the data security universe in 2010. That, as much as anything, illustrates just how prolific hackers and malware authors have become and why consumers and enterprises will need to be especially vigilant in the coming year.
Throughout 2010, there seemed to be a never-ending barrage of transgressions, small and large, that kept security software vendors and their customers constantly on edge. The supposedly secure data networks of Fortune 500 companies were infiltrated on a regular basis and even the U.S. government found itself exposed and embarrassed in front of an international audience.
