With Web 2.0, a new breed of malware evolves
Web 2.0 technologies may be laying the groundwork for a new generation of hacker tools, a noted security researcher said Wednesday. Google Mashups, RSS feeds, search, all of these can be misused by hackers to distribute malware, attack Web surfers and communicate with botnets, said Petko Petkov, a security researcher speaking at the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) U.S. 2007 conference, held on eBay's campus.
Tools like the downloadable MPack hacker toolkit have made it easier for the bad guys to deploy malicious code, but some of these emerging technologies promise to take hacking to a whole new level, he said. "Now people can use and abuse Web 2.0 technologies to construct something much larger," he said. "When you look at it from a hacker perspective, you'll see there are a whole lot of opportunities," he said.
