Web threats to surpass e-mail pests

By next year, Internet users can expect more cyberattacks to originate from the Web than via e-mail, security firm Trend Micro predicts.

E-mail has traditionally been the top means of attack, with messages laden with Trojan horses and other malicious programs hitting inboxes. But the balance is about to tip as cybercrooks increasingly turn to the Web to attack PCs.

"By 2008, most of the threats you are facing will be Web placed. Today most of it is still e-mail," Raimund Genes, Trend Micro's chief researcher, said in a presentation at the Gartner Symposium and ITxpo here on Monday.

The reason for the flip is simple. Security tools for e-mail have become commonplace, but the same isn't true for Web traffic. Security firms have found it tough to secure what comes into a network and computers over port 80, the network port used to browse the Web using the hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP.

"You can't block port 80," Eva Chen, Trend Micro's chief executive, said in an interview. "It is different than e-mail. E-mail is store and forward. HTTP is real time and you need to be able to deal with the latency in the user experience."

Read the entire article on CNET news HERE