Trend Micro Inc (趨勢科技), the nation’s top software company by market share, anticipates double-digit sales growth in Taiwan this year as the need for information technology (IT) security becomes even more pressing amid increasing Internet activity worldwide.
As a leader in Internet content security, Trend Micro reported 15 percent year-on-year domestic revenue growth last year, capturing around 46 percent of the local anti-virus market, the company said at a press briefing on Wednesday.
The company said that wide use of universal serial bus (USB) devices and the Internet has made USB and Web threats the two main sources of security issues. The top three viruses that affected domestic computers last year were the downloader virus, the vital information resource under siege virus and the portable executive virus, accounting for 35 percent, 22 percent, and 12 percent of reported local cases.
Oscar Chang (張偉欽), executive vice president of Trend Micro’s Greater China region, warned of rising potential threats this year, including attacks on social networking Web sites, USB-embedded spyware and malicious software written specifically for smartphone platforms.
“As social networking becomes mainstream, these Web sites become festering grounds for criminal activities. For instance, by stealing information from powersellers and spamming their clients, high-tech thieves can engage in transactions with unsuspecting shoppers and sell items that they don’t have,” said Samson Tai (戴燊), marketing director of Trend Micro’s Taiwan business unit.
“Moreover, it’s not enough to simply ignore spam e-mails; often times, hackers send personal e-mails mimicking an acquaintance, but as soon as you open the encoded e-mail, your computer’s infected,” Tai added.
Furthermore, electronic devices with USB autorun programs, such as smartphones, are turning into favorable mediums to transfer malware from one computer to another, the company said.
With each computer sync, spyware is transferred onto computers, which is increasing viruses online at faster speeds than anti-virus companies can track them, Tai said.
Trend Micro also foresees Internet criminals directly writing malicious softwares for smartphone platforms such as Windows mobile and Linux.
Also, with the emerging trend of cloud computing, virtual resources are provided as a service over the Internet, putting worldwide computer users at risk.
“Applications such as Web 2.0 or the Google applications are examples of cloud computing, and their virus attacks are much more severe and direct,” Chang said.
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