Instant messaging: a new target for hackers

Abstract

Instant messaging is exploding as a means of personal and corporate communications. Individuals chat via IM; companies rely on beefed-up versions of the technology, with its real-time capabilities, for collaborative design work; and e-businesses use IM to provide live, immediate customer service to shoppers. Meanwhile, the technology is finding its way onto mobile devices, including PDAs and smart phones. However, as IM becomes more popular, particularly for businesses, it has also increasingly become the target of attacks, such as those using malicious code and phishing. Some security experts say IM is following the same patterns shown during the development of e-mail attacks. These include the use of tricks to encourage victims to click on virus-laden attachments or hyperlinks to Web pages that upload applets to either infect visitors with malware or drop unwanted software on their computers. The most dangerous part about the attacks is their speed of propagation, caused by IM's real-time capabilities. Traditional antivirus technology, in which vendors typically need 24 hours to find remedies for new malicious code, may be too slow to prevent many IM attacks from spreading rapidly.