Websense

Websense today launched Websense Data Discover, a new software designed to help businesses automatically identify and understand confidential and sensitive data in their organizations.

Websense said it introduced Websense Data Discover to meet the burgeoning need that has emerged as a result of phenemenal growth in data.

Based on data discovery technology in the broader Websense data loss prevention suite, the new software provides organizations of all sizes an easy-to-use and affordable stand-alone data discovery tool without the additional data monitoring and enforcement capabilities of the more comprehensive Websense data loss prevention suite.

Technology analysis provider IDC has named Websense the global leader in Web Security with 21 per cent share of the $1.2 billion market.

Websense’s market share is more than the combined total market share of the next two largest Web security vendors.

“As the Web security leader, Websense is well-positioned to address the market trends we’ve identified — with a solution set that includes Web security, e-mail and hosted security as well as data loss prevention,” said Brian Burke, program director, IDC Security Products program.

Websense predicts content-based threats to top the list security concerns in 2008.

There is a possibility of large scale denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on Beijing Olympic-related sites as political statements and fraud attempts through email and the Web surrounding the Olympics, according to Websense’s prediction of top ten security threats for 2008.

It also foresees compromises of popular Olympic news or other sports sites — attacks that would install malicious code and steal confidential business information.

Hackers will devise new means for cross-platform Web attacks taking advantage of the popularity of Macs and iPhones. Special interest groups falling under a certain age group, wealth bracket, or people with particular purchasing habits, will become targets of Web 2.0 attacks, predicts Websense.

Websense’s observation further says that spam will increase in the blogosphere and ‘talk back’ sections of news sites will drive traffic and increase search engine rankings of infected Web sites.

Web 2.0 additions like Google Adsense, mash-ups, widgets, and social networks along with the Web advertisements linked to Web pages have increased the possibility of ‘weak links’ and contents that are vulnerable to compromises.

Attackers will increasingly exploit the weakest links to target more Internet users. Search engines and large user networks like MySpace, Facebook or other social networking sites are most vulnerable to these attacks.

Number of compromised Web sites will outnumber of created malicious sites. Hackers are using evasive techniques that use poly-morphic JavaScript (Polyscript) meaning that a uniquely coded Web page is served up for each visit by a user to a malicious Web site.

By changing the code every visit, signature-based security scanning technologies have difficulty detecting Web pages as malicious and hackers can extend the length of time their malicious site evades detection.

Websense predicts an increased use of crypto-virology and sophistication in data concealment including the use of stenography, embedding data within standard protocols, and potentially within media files. Toolkits widely available on the Web will be used to embed proprietary information and steal data.

In 2008 Websense predicts that vishing and voice spam will combine and increase. Users will receive automated voice calls on LAN lines with voice spam to lure them to input their credentials through the telephone.

Websense anticipates that with global cooperation of enforcement agencies, 2008 would see the biggest crackdown on hacker groups.