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Home > Security News > IM threats grow, response lags |
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Threats against instant messaging (IM) programs surged dramatically last year and bigger attacks are likely in 2006. But it'll probably be some time before IT shops implement adequate defenses. That assessment comes from Waltham, Mass.-based IMlogic Inc. and San Diego-based Akonix Systems Inc. The vendors, both of which focus on selling IM security products, released reports last month showing that IM-related security incidents in 2005 skyrocketed versus the year before. In the case of a survey conducted by Akonix, many IT administrators acknowledged they haven't thought much about such threats. Instead, they're focusing primarily on e-mail threats. "IT departments have spent a lot of money on security. They've hardened the castle walls but left the drawbridge open with IM," said Art Gilliland, VP of products for IMlogic. "The big problem is that IM is user-deployed." In most cases, Gilliland added, it's actually like a hidden form of communication. A lot of IT professionals may not know the extent to which it's used in their organizations. A 1,700% increase in security incidents
Also last year, the IMlogic Threat Center found:
A breakdown by individual product is included in the report. The document also showed the growing sophistication of real-time threats. The first talking, "intelligent" worm was identified (IM.Myspace04.AIM) in 2005, the report said, adding, "The worm not only broadcast malicious messages to other users of IM, but also interacted with potential victims without the infected user being aware of an attempt to dupe potential victims into activating the worm on their local machine." The year also saw a dramatic spike in the number of mutating attacks, including significant mutations on all the major consumer IM networks. "With 140 total mutations and detection on all the major IM networks, the Kelvir worm was the leader in IM threat mutations, followed by Bropia with 29 mutations and Opanki with 26 mutations," the report said. "Why are the numbers so high today? IM is really growing in terms of use. Because of the popularity, it's a more attractive target to hackers and virus writers," Gilliland said. "The specific number of threats is not huge, but it's much more than the year before. So the percentage ends up being quite large."
A look at the year ahead
Akonix worried about IM apathy
"This huge gap between the security applied to e-mail and that applied to IM is particularly alarming, since 47% of respondents indicated that the e-mail/messaging organization has responsibility for securing both e-mail and instant messaging," Akonix said in a statement. "The results show that many corporate information technology organizations have left gaping holes in the defense of their networks and systems by failing to address new threats in a timely fashion." Akonix also observed a steep rise in IM threats last year. For example, its security team tracked 62 IM-based attacks in November, a 226% increase over the previous month, the company said. "The astonishing conclusion of these survey results is that organizations have spent millions of dollars and man hours securing their e-mail systems, but have barely begun to address the rapidly growing threat of virus, worm or malicious code attack through employee use of instant messaging," Don Montgomery, Akonix's vice president of marketing, said in the statement. "As the most rapidly adopted communications medium in history, IM has already become an indispensable business tool. Our research shows, however, that the security protection of IM is not keeping up with its adoption." Advice for IT administrators
"If the objective is to block all IM use, you can block it through firewall configurations," he said. "Some companies do that. The challenge is that it's not necessarily easy. And you are stopping all the productive use of IM." For IT managers who want to get a better handle on IM use in their company, Gilliland said a good starting point is for them to know what their business objectives are and see where IM fits in. Then they should adopt an infrastructure to manage it. Not surprisingly, he used his company's IMlogic IM Manager as an example. "Our system sits in the data center and captures all IM traffic," he said. "You can turn it on or off, map users to their corporate credentials, which allows you to enforce policies by department, and you can decide for yourself that one department can use IM, others can't, or everyone can use it but they can't do file transfers."
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