Windows to suffer fewer attacks as it loses ground to mobile

According to Kaspersky Lab’s prediction, there’s a silver lining for Microsoft as it struggles to gain a foothold in the mobile space against Apple iOS and Google Android: Over the next decade, the company’s oft-targeted Windows platform won’t be quite as juicy a target for certain breeds of cyber criminals as it has been.

That’s not to say that Windows will fall out of bad guys’ sights entirely. In business environments, the platform will continue to feel the brunt of highly focused attacks, such as the advanced persistent threats that have already started to hurt organizations.

Kaspersky foresees the defining feature of the next decade of computer security as being “the end of Windows’ domination of user operating systems.” As more people move from Windows-based laptops to smartphones and tablets running a diverse array of OSes, cyber criminals will have to change their tactics accordingly.

Kaspersky foresees cyber criminals adopting one of two approaches: The first is to move away from the traditional tact of only creating malware that exploits Windows; rather, successful cyber criminals will expand their skills to crank out nasty code aimed at various platforms and to manage multiple types of devices. The bad guys will have more obstacles in their way by then, according to Kaspersky, as security measures like biometric user identification and payment protection systems become more common.

The other approach will be for hackers to continue focusing efforts squarely at Windows in the business world, where Kaspersky foresees Microsoft’s platform will continue to dominate. Cyber-criminal services like espionage, data and IP theft, and corporate reputation-smearing will be in high demand on the black market.

Among Kaspersky’s other predictions, botnets will increasingly infiltrate mobile and Internet-enabled devices instead of desktop computers. Additionally, spammers will target mobile devices instead of desktops as virtual communication steadily replaces Internet-based missives, thanks to advances in cellular technology that will enable faster data transfers at lower costs.

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