Is Web surfing really dangerous?
The motivation for today’s hacking is primarily financial and can be most easily done through the Internet. Through increased use of Web-based attacks such as drive-by downloads, PHP and AJAX exploits, threats have taken on all of the worst characteristics of the recent past: They are financially motivated, extremely damaging, and relatively silent and unnoticeable. And because hackers are attacking consumers as they bank, shop and surf online, the threats are viral and widely distributed. In summary, today’s threat environment has these characteristics: a) Threats are even less noticeable than before because they are not only designed to be silent, but they may not cause the loss of PC performance or instability that made consumers aware of the threats on their PC. b) PC-based threats are still targeted and sent in small batches to avoid detection. But Web-based threats are often massively deployed and viral, like the first wave of virus-based hacking. c) Consequences are just as seri
