PC Magazine: The Rise of Blended Threats
Technology has made the world smaller, and therefore more dangerous.
By Matthew D. Sarrel
August 11, 2008
As a kid I talked often with my grandfather about how the world was changing. Most of what he said centered on the ways technology complicates our lives. Supplementary points: people are less honest now than they used to be, and the world is getting smaller and more dangerous. When I sat down to write this column I gave a lot of thought to those discussions. Because my grandfather was right: Technology has made the world smaller, and in some ways it is more dangerous. Every day we're attacked in ways that most people (including the security community) couldn't imagine 10 to 15 years ago - let alone 80 to 90.
The threat landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. Viruses used to spread from computer to computer, then from network to network, but now we're all on one big network and viruses aren't even called viruses anymore (there are so many kinds that are so different we've thrown up our hands and call them all malware). Boot sector viruses aren't much of a concern - most PCs sold in the last five years don't even have floppy drives. Nope, today it's all e-mail and Web sites that bring the threats to us.
A typical attack involves a combination of technologies - hence the name blended threat. Such an attack usually has both social and technological components.
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