Threats

The Basics
IT consulting companies have identified that most threats to corporate IT environments fall into the following categories:
 * Viruses are malicious, hidden, self-replicating applications that attach themselves to commonly used programs. Viruses become active every time an infected program is opened.
 * Worms are another type of malicious, self-replicating application. Worms are IT network aware and can easily spread throughout an entire IT environment. Unlike viruses, worms do not need to attach themselves to another program in order to affect your corporate IT environment.
 * Trojan horses are pieces of malicious code that are typically attached to downloadable computer programs, applications, apps, etc. Computer users will often seek out a legitimate application, such as a free trial productivity app, and while using the program, the Trojan horse will upload into the user's computer. Trojan horses are dangerous because they can evade most security programs.
 * Rootkits are programs that hackers use to mask intrusion to individual desktop computers and even the entire IT environment while gaining administrator access to your company's entire IT environment.
 * Spam is any unwanted or unsolicited electronic junk mail.
 * Spyware is a type of malware that, once loaded onto your company's computers, will collect bits of information from users.
 * Hacker is the label assigned to any person that purposefully gains unauthorized access to any computer system, personal or corporate, with the intent of causing harm.

Current Threats

 * Evading security measures
 * User education and proactivity
 * Potential Weakpoints in your Networks
 * Cloud computing

Emerging Threats

 * Mobile devices: As more and more mobile phones are used to access the Internet, IT security risks increase. Since mobile phones store information about a person's contacts, location, and online identity, they are a target for hackers intending to steal personal information. Unfortunately, many mobile phones do not contain virus scanning software and are often not updated when new versions of applications are introduced that contain more advanced security protection. By 2014, the use of mobile phones for Internet access is expected to exceed Internet access from computers, so it is important to ensure that mobile phones are adequately updated to address new security threats and that web site providers are taking necessary precautions when providing mobile sites.
 * Information control online: Web sites such as search engines use a variety of techniques to determine what information is presented to users. This personalization of internet browsing is intended to provide users with the most pertinent information according to their preferences and online history. However, there is a lack of transparency in how web sites obtain user preferences and online history, how it is used, and whether it is provided to other sites. Additionally, web sites use search engine optimization to increase their rank in the results provided by search engines. However, hackers use the same technique to improve the chance of users visiting their sites.

Resources
http://www.allcovered.com/technology/it-security/  Sources; Georgia Tech Cyber Security Summit 2011