30 minute interview

“It is a misconception that open source is more secure”

Vishal Dhupar, MD, Symantec India, talked to Neeraj Gandhi about the changing threat landscape and noted that open source wasn’t more secure than closed, social networking sites were being targeted avidly and that the number of threats detected had risen manifold

Vishal Dhupar

How has the security landscape changed from your previous report?

In 2007, we detected 711,912 new threats compared to 125,243 in 2006—an increase of 468%. This also brings the total number of malicious code threats detected to 1,122,311 by the end of 2007. Another striking revelation is the increased number of attacks on the government sector, which was the top industry sector for identities exposed, accounting for 60% of the total, an increase from 12% in the previous reporting period.

How do you compare the Indian scenario with global trends in light of this report?

Specific to India, malicious activities in the form of worms, viruses and Trojans are on the rise. More than 65% of malicious attacks in India were through worms as compared to the global average of 22%. This is a clear indication that basic security patch updates are not being installed.

In addition, botnet activities have increased manifold. Almost 38,502 bot-infected computers and more than 60 command and control servers were detected during the period. This is an increase of 50% from the last reporting period. Phishing was another major cause of concern in the Indian security threat landscape. In the last six months of 2007, Symantec observed 345 unique Phishing URLs with IP addresses hosted in India.

According to the report, the Mozilla browser recorded two and a half times more vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer. What does this say about the belief that open source platform is more secure?

When a particular medium is more in use hackers tend to exploit it for personal gains. This basically summarizes the increased vulnerabilities in Mozilla browser during the period when compared to Internet Explorer (IE). That said, it is a misconception that

an open source platform is more secure. It should be noted that while using open source that the user is at the mercy of a few individuals, who look after open source as a hobby. Unlike IE, there is no parenthood attached to open source.

When a vulnerability is detected in IE, it is the responsibility of Microsoft to patch it at the earliest. In a similar scenario, where an open source application is involved, people looking after it take it as a social cause and not a necessity. It is a false impression that open source can’t be broken.

What was the biggest security trend?

What we have observed is that, users were required to visit malicious sites or click on malicious email attachments to become a victim of a security threat in the past. Today, hackers are compromising legitimate Web sites and using them as a distribution medium to attack home and enterprise computers. Attackers are targeting sites that are likely to be trusted by end users, such as social networking sites.

The report highlights an increasing number of Phishing attacks on social networking sites as compared to financial sites. What are the reasons for this?

The majority of the Phished Web sites that were detected globally during this reporting period spoofed social networking sites. This is a sign of caution for India too. According to a recent industry report, nearly 5-6 million Indians are actively involved in social networking and spend approximately 25-75% of their time online in social networking activities. They can become easy prey to ‘abuse of trust’ tactics.

Taking this into consideration, whether it is the financial Web site or social networking Web site that has been Phished, the motive is the same—to garner financial gains.