Today Frost and Sullivan released a report on endpoint security that is precisely in line with what NetSecure has been preaching for a long time: the most significant issue in security today isn’t the firewall or network –it’s the endpoint. Despite the significant investment in security infrastructure at most corporations, breaches occur with shocking frequency, largely due to the gigantic security hole at the end user’s computer. In layman’s terms, companies are spending big bucks on securing their network and data, and almost nothing to secure their end users and customers. They’ve invested heavily in ensuring their doors are locked, but aren’t taking the time to make sure their employees and customers are taking care of the keys.

Cyber criminals know this; they’ve stopped trying to break through the door. They’re coming after you to get the keys. And they’ve gotten very, very good at it.

Attacks nowadays are much more sophisticated than before – the days of the “script kiddie” are long gone. Here are some expert quotes about the “Storm Worm”, a notorious virus that shocked the security community with its depth of complexity and sophistication:

“…the anti-virus companies are pretty much powerless” “

…we've never seen the combination of these tactics in an attack .”

“…This speaks to a new level of sophistication in the enemy….the enemy now has architects as good as our best.”

(Source: http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000975.html )

…and who were the target of the Storm Worm? Not the company database – but the end users. You and me. By leveraging the computing power of each computer that was infected, the Storm Worm was rumored to have the computing power exceeding that of the world’s top supercomputers. That’s right. Organized criminals broke into our computers and used them in parallel to produce a “virtual supercomputer” for their own ends (which are largely unknown). And antivirus companies couldn’t do anything about it.

Scary stuff.