from zdnet.com

Social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can expect more attention from cybercriminals in 2010, according to a new report (PDF) released Tuesday by McAfee Labs. Also at risk are users of Adobe Systems products including Acrobat Reader and Flash. And move over Microsoft; the security firm predicts that Google’s Chrome OS will “create another opportunity for malware writers to prey on users.”

The company also anticipates smarter and more dangerous Trojans that “follow the money,” as well as a “significant trend toward a more distributed and resilient botnet infrastructure that relies much more on peer-to-peer technologies.”

In a recorded interview (scroll down for audio) David Marcus, McAfee Labs’ director of security research and communications, said that he expects “an explosion of Facebook and other services targeted by cybercriminals.” In addition to malware like Koobface that spreads among Facebook users’ friends list, Marcus expects an increase in rogue Facebook applications.

“When you click yes to ‘do you want to allow this application to access your Facebook account,’ you’re giving that application access to all the data in your Facebook account,” he said. Facebook vets the third-party applications that it distributes, but rouge developers are finding other ways to get people to install unauthorized apps.

“A lot of the spammers and scammers will send fake Facebook application requests to users’ inboxes,” he said. Marcus recommends that you only install apps from within Facebook by clicking “browse more applications” in the Facebook application installer.”

Twitter vulnerabilities
According to McAfee, Twitter is vulnerable mostly because of URL-shortening services like bit.ly and tinyurl.com. There’s nothing wrong with Twitter or these services, but when you click on a shortened URL you have no idea where you’re going until after you get there. I would like to see a URL-shortening service that vets each URL for security and rejects those that are potentially dangerous. Twitter, according to the McAfee report is “also serving as a control vehicle for botnets.”

Criminals are now being more surgical in their attacks, singling out individuals and corporations as targets. The report points to the 10-month investigation of “GhostNet,” which McAfee Labs describes as a “network of at least 1,295 compromised computers in 103 countries” that “primarily belonged to government, aid groups, and activists.” The malicious code was delivered by e-mail with subject headings related to the Dali Lama and Tibet, according to the report.

The report also sites “a very targeted wave of attacks against the management of major companies,” as well as attacks carried out against “journalists from various media organizations, including Agence France Press, Dow Jose and Reuters based in China.”

Adobe products and Google Chrome vulnerable
Adobe products, especially its Acrobat Reader and Flash, are likely to replace Microsoft Office as the No. 1 software target, according to McAfee. It’s nothing they’ve (Adobe) done wrong,” Marcus said. “The bad guys go where the masses go” and because of the increasingly widespread use of Adobe products, “that tends to be what the bad buys will start looking to exploit. It really is nothing more sophisticated than that.”

Criminals are infecting PDF files and leveraging exploits in the opening of PDF documents, according to Marcus.

“Instead of viewing a PDF you’re actually taken to a website that downloads some type of malware to your machine.” Adobe plans to patch a critical hole in Reader and Acrobat on January 12.

There is also concern about Google’s Chrome operating system, which is expected to be officially released in 2010. Chrome, which will run Web-based applications, is likely to be vulnerable to attacks in HTML 5–the newest version of the hyper-text markup language that, says the report, “holds all the promises that today’s Web community seeks–primarily blurring and removing the lines between a Web application and a desktop application.”

McAfee also warned of banking Trojans with “new tactics that went well beyond the rather simple keylogging-with-screenshots” that were used earlier. Trojans now use rootkit techniques to hide on a victim’s system to disable antivirus software.

“Often the victim’s computer becomes part of a botnet and receives malware configuration updates,” the report said.

For more on the threats on Facebook and Twitter read “Using Facebook and Twitter safely” on CNET.

Cause for optimism
The report did end with some optimism, calling 2009 a good year for law enforcement. In November 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted nine individuals “from Russia, Moldova, and Estonia who were allegedly responsible for $9 million in customer payroll data compromises at RBS WorldPay.”

The year also “saw the conviction of the infamous “Godfather of Spam,” Alan Ralsky of Michigan, and his criminal syndicate, which was responsible for generating a significant portion of the world’s unsolicited e-mail,” McAfee said.

“You started to see that not a lot of resiliency was built into some of those botnets, they were taken down, and poof they disappeared for very long periods of time,” Marcus said. He said he thinks “the bad guys will learn from that and build in some redundancy,” but he remains optimistic. “The good guys and regular users are getting tired of getting exploited and we’re finally starting to see more offensive and aggressive take downs of botnets…we’re starting to see people wanting to take back the Internet.”

Below is a? compiled a list of twenty six buzz monitoring tools that are free of charge. Use these tools to keep track of your company reputation or even spy on your competition!

1. Your Industry

If you simply don’t have time to track everything that specifically relates to your company–or your competition–you can still track news that relates to your industry. Moreover and Yahoo are just a couple of resources that offer RSS feeds for aggregated industry news.

2. Mainstream Media News

One of the best ways to track mainstream media mentions of your company is to use Google News. Enter your company name, sort the results by date published and then subscribe to the RSS feed. You’ll get instant RSS updates of any news items that mention your business. Example for “apple“.

3. News Buzz

It’s one thing to track any news that relates to your business, but what if you just want to know about the news that becomes popular? Sites such as Digg and Reddit will let you search for submitted stories that match your company name. Subscribe to the resulting RSS feed and you’ll know about any story on Digg that mentions your company–or your biggest rival.

4. Social Media News

By the time a hot news story gets picked-up by the mainstream media, it could have made the rounds for days in the blogosphere. You can capitalize on positive buzz and put out any reputation fires by tracking social media. Technorati is one of the best options for tracking social media sites. Custom RSS feeds let you get quick updates on any blog that utters your company name.

5. Blog Posts

If a blog happens to “ping” the blogosphere, the chances are that it will get on Google Blog Search. Even if the blog isn’t in Google news, or doesn’t make the main Google index, Google Blog Search might still find that story that mentions your CEO or your recent product launch. Get alerts to matching stories via email or RSS.

6. Blog Comments

Sometimes tracking a blog post doesn’t reveal the full conversation about your business. The blog post might be positive, but those leaving comments could attack your reputation. Services such as co.mments.com track the comments left on blogs. You can search for your brand and subscribe to the RSS feed for instant updates.

7. Blog Conversations

A negative blog post appears on a low-trafficked blog and there are no comments to track. End of story? Not quite, what if a very popular blogger picks up on the story? It could spread very quickly and catch you by surprise. Blogpulse’s conversation tracker will help you track who’s linking to that blog post about your company.

8. Blog Trends

How well is your competitor’s new product launch going? Blogpulse trends lets you track whether a keyword is getting growing blog mentions or not. Apple’s iPhone saw a 1000% jump in blog mentions leading up to its launch.

9. Bookmarks

Remember the days when your customers would bookmark your site in IE and you never knew about it? Thanks to online bookmarking services such as del.icio.us more people are sharing their bookmarks online. RSS feeds make it easy to track whenever someone bookmarks a web page that includes mention of your company.

10. Photos

Did an employee release a top-secret photo of your new products? Did someone snap a photo of your CEO leaving a strip-club? The chances are high that they might upload it to image hosting sites such as Flickr. Luckily, you can subscribe to an RSS feed that will update you on any new image that matches your company name?or the name of your slimy CEO.

11. Videos

So what if your CEO was caught on video having a lap-dance? Ouch! Ok, less damaging, someone releases a video showing a negative product review. Google Video recently switched focus to index videos from many online hosting sites (such as YouTube and MetaCafe). Now you can keep track of videos that include your company.

12. Tags

Wouldn’t it be great if you could enter a keyword and see who used that word as a “tag” How much better would it be if you could see matching tags across more than a dozen sites? Keotag.com does just that, making it easy for you to track if someone tags a page using your company or product name.

13. Forum Posts

Sometimes the most important conversations don’t happen on blogs. Forums and message boards can host conversations about your company and you’d never know about it. Don’t panic! Sites such as Boardtracker.com will keep an eye on popular forums for you and alert you by RSS if your company is mentioned in a thread.

14. Changing Information

Wikipedia is one of the most trusted resources for information on the web. You might be interested in any updates to your company profile or maybe you want to know if your competitor is trying to remove links to your web site. Fortunately you can track change history for any Wikipedia page and have the changes sent to your RSS reader of choice.

15. Job Listings

If your competitor wants to start a new service or launch a new product, the chances are they’ll need to hire new staff to achieve this. Classifieds search engine Oodle scours many online job listings and aggregates the information in a central location. Set up RSS feeds for searches on your biggest competitors and you’ll know whenever they list a vacant position.

16. Financial Filings

You can get a good feel for the financial health of your publicly-traded competitors by keeping a close eye on their SEC filings. Use Edgar Online and you’ll know if they’re subject to an SEC investigation or if their CEO is dumping stock faster than Martha Stewart.

17. Conference Calls

Sticking with public companies, sometimes you can learn some competitive information by listening to the company’s conference calls. But who has time for that? SeekingAlpha lets you subscribe to the RSS feed of conference call transcripts. Open up the transcript and you can quickly get a snapshot of their financial health. You might even learn about a new product launch–one which you might want to think about for your business.

18. Patents

Keeping track of patent filings was notoriously difficult before Google Patent Search came along. Now you can keep any eye on patents filed that relate to your industry. Better yet, keep track of patents that might violate your company held patents.

19. Events

Yahoo’s Upcoming lets you get RSS alerts on any new event that matches your selected keyword. You can keep track of conferences that you might want to attend, or sponsor. In addition, you could keep track of seminars or meeting being held by your competitors.

20. New Products

Let’s say you want to get some ideas of products that might be hot right now. Amazon.com lets you view product “tags” and then review similar tags. You can use this to get an idea of companion products that you might want to launch.

21. Search Query Trends

What search queries are popular at Google right now? Thanks to Google Trends you can get an idea of which keywords are most searched for. You can narrow your research to specific countries or cities–letting you know if a product has global or local appeal.

22. Keyword Referrals

Sure you could probably take an educated guess as to which sites might get the most traffic for a particular keyword, but it’s more fun to actually spy on your competitors. Compete’s Search Analytics allows you to enter a keyword and see which web sites are getting traffic for that keyword.

23. Site Referrals

Ok, so maybe you’re not sure which keywords you should target for your next SEM campaign. Compete’s Search Analytics will also let you enter any domain name and see which keywords are driving traffic to that site. Now you know which keywords your competitors are targeting.

24. Email Updates

If you’re not quite ready for all of that RSS reader nonsense, you can still keep track of the latest buzz via email. Google Alerts let you track web, blogs, news and groups for any phrase you want. Select daily, weekly or “as it happens” updates and you’ll get an email whenever your company name is mentioned.

25. The Untrackable

Some stuff just can’t be tracked that easily. If you want to track changes at a site–even if they don’t offer RSS or email updates–there are many tools that will do it for you. Our favorite is Copernic’s Tracker which, for $50, will let you keep an eye on any web site. Use it to monitor RipOffReport.com, forum threads, or even your competitor’s web site.

26. Anything You Want

You don’t have to be a developer in order to create your own custom buzz monitoring tool. Thanks to Yahoo Pipes, you can quickly set up your own RSS tracking, complete with filters. Want to track Twitter for mentions of your company? Not a problem with Yahoo Pipes.

Upon my research on the latest info on creating a web 2.0 platform and the business of starting it, I stummbed upon one of the best books out there,Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen. I was reluctant to at first after purchasing many books on the topic but don’t go into detail about the process of a startup. After reading the description on Amazon, I wound up ordering it and dove right in.

The author, Amy Shuen has an impressive background and education with a MBA from Harvard Business School and a PhD from Cal Berkeley. One thing that caught my eye was her role in founding the Silicon Valley Strategy Group whch created $100 million strategic venture fund. Having this type of background shows me she knows what it takes to create innovative companies rather than just studying their models in the classroom.

Amy stresses the fact she wants to teach budding entrepreneurs the strategy and philosophy of creatng web 2.0 communities rather than the technology that goes into them. This is the essence of what I need to learn and grasp rather than the coding and design of a web 2.0 application.? Don’t get me wrong, that is an important factor; after all it is the product.? As with any type of business, you need to determine if it is a viable solution to a problem and this is at it’s core, Web 2.0 technology.

As with my web 2.0 idea, people need to figure out if this solution works and there is a place on the overcrowded web 2.0 movement. She explains there is a highly unlikely scenario where someone will create the next Facebook but they can create solutions that compliment it’s functionality. A great example would be Friend Feed. This utility tracks activity and feeds that into Facebook for your friends to see. Great tool, I use it myself. I understood this but my idea revolves around? vertical that isn’t out there and expands on the Facebook and social networking concept.? I realize I’m not reinventing the wheel with my concept but expanding on those ideals that were created by such platforms as Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster. The concept of user generated content which gives users the flexibility and stage to express themselves and connect with others whether it be with people they already know or will soon meet.

Amy uses a few case studies to explain how their platforms engage the visitor and draw others in. She uses Flickr, a popular photo sharing site, acquired by Yahoo in 2005. It details how customers themselves help build the site, as old-fashioned “word of mouth” becomes hypergrowth. The book demonstrates the power of this new paradigm by examining how Flickr, a classic user-driven business, created value for itself by helping users create their own value; the concept of sharing their personal photos with others and using a platform to express their thoughts on various topics.

One of her other case studies that painted a new picture for me on social networking was on LinkedIn. She explains it’s beginning and the notion of the Six Degrees of Separation model.Prior to this concept, I’ve only heard of the “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” model in college and thought it was just a joke but the orgins of the concept seems very powerful. The notion of using a first connection to “link” to another and opening up that 2nd tier connector’s connections. LinkedIn uses the model that only those who are connected through a 3rd link. This keeps the network relevant to those who only share connections through friendship or business. This concept keeps the community relevant and invites more of a connection. Amy did a great job of explaining how this concept has elevated LinkedIn as a pioneer.

After thinking and understanding this concept and applying it to other platforms like Facebook and Myspace I understood now why Facebook and LinkedIn are wildly popular and Myspace has lost market share. Users are connections with those that have something in common, whether it be through existing friendships or professional reasons. These communities stay very personal and relevant to one user rather than th concept of Myspace ‘which does the opposite and has the user lost in a myriad of profiles and it’s up to them to find others. Another reason Myspace, lost the race is plain and simple: It became to corporate after the acquisition from Fox Media Group. It’s understandable that it’s purely a money machine for Rupert Murdoch but old media doesn’t understand the Web 2.0 movement, it’s about the community and not the platform. Myspace has become overblown with flashing banner ads and poputs, slow load times and page customizations. (I admit, my Myspace page is full of pukey colors). On the other side, Facebook and LinkedIn keep a simple look with suttle, indiscreetly placed ads. This portrays a platforms that connects users rather than selling advertising space. To me, this is a major reason of the hypergrowth of these two platforms.

Amy then goes into businesses like Amazon who tap into the web as a source of indirect revenue, using creative new approaches to monetize the investments they’ve made in the Web. Amazon’s innovative way of helping their competition sell their products through Amazon’s platform and collections fees for every sale. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon understood that his successful business could indirectly create a new revenue channel through helping his smaller competitors rather than focus on keeping books in stock themselves. I’m sure when he thought of the concept many economists thought he was crazy but whose laughing all the way to the bank?

Anyone thinking of creating new wealth using the Web 2.0 philosophy needs to read this book.? It will open your eyes to existing ideas you have and make you realize there is a better way of existing technologies. You don’t have to be a Harvard MBA or Computer Science PhD from MIT to build a platform but that one idea, if it’s viable, could potentially be the next disruptor in the Web 2.0 front!