It’s becoming harder and harder for scammers to exploit Windows-based platforms because of security sophistication. According to the Cisco Annual Security Report, these caused scammers to shift their focus to other platforms such as smartphones, tablets and other mobile platforms instead. The report also reveals that 2010 was the year where Internet spam has greatly decreased. Cybercriminals are turning their heads to “money muling” and multitude of other trust exploitation.

“Everyone knows the joke about the two hikers and the hungry bear in which the swifter hiker explains his footrace is not against the bear but the other hiker. The cybercriminal bears have been feasting on the “slowest hiker” Windows platform for the last decade. But with increased security in the Windows operating system and applications, the bears are looking elsewhere to satisfy their hunger.

“Mobile and emerging operating systems are hikers that the bears have largely ignored until now, but they are beginning to look much more appealing. These bears are also finding opportunities in the explosion in mobile-device usage, where we’re seeing a growing number of exploits aimed specifically at mobile users.”

Trust exploitation can be achieved in many ways. Cisco’s list of seven “deadly weaknesses” that cybercriminals exploit through social engineering scams be it email, social networking chats or phone calls are –sex appeal, greed, vanity, trust, sloth, compassion and urgency.

Cisco Global Adversary Resource Market Share (ARMS), which outlines the cybercrime’s success rate as they target both enterprise and individual users, reported that at a 10-point index, the level of resources under adversarial control worldwide at the end of 2010, was down almost a half a point from the December 2009 level of 7.2 reported in the Cisco 2009 Annual Security Report. This sector of Cisco tracks the overall level of compromised resources worldwide.

Also, at the 2010 Cisco Cybercrime Showcase, two awards were given away– one to Thorsten Holz, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany for their contributions of a security professional in fighting cybercrime, and the other one to Stuxnet for being the most evil of malwares.

Moreover, the Cisco Cybercrime Return on Investment (CROI) Matrix predicts that data-theft trojans such as Zeus, easy-to-deploy Web exploits, and money mules will be prevalent in 2011. Social networking scams will not be as significant for cybercriminals, and it’s not because they are declining, but rather, a massive number of Zeus Trojans will be deployed and exploitation is going to boom. This makes social networking scams only a small fraction of a much larger scheme.

Security provider McAfee recently released a prediction of emerging mobile threats for 2011, and named Apple and Facebook as potential crime scenes.  Another disturbing fact about the report reveals that mobile platforms can be infected with the same PC-based Trojans we’ve been dealing with for years.  Moreover, in response to increasing mobile threats, Lookout Mobile security released a list of tips on how to protect your mobile experience, as well as Commtouch during the holiday season. Commtouch also reported a drop of spammers as of December 2010, perhaps they’re taking some holiday too. But their number kicked back to an unprecedented number after the holiday season. They are back in business.