Zscaler ThreatLabZ Releases Q4 2011 'State Of The Web' Security Research Report

Zscaler ThreatLabZ, the research arm of Cloud Security Company, Zscaler, has released its Q4 2011 "State of the Web" security research report. Witnessing two hundred billion transactions from millions of business users across the globe traversing the Zscaler cloud, key report findings include the following.

• Mobile use rises dramatically: Zscaler ThreatLabZ observed an 85% increase in mobile traffic during Q4 2011. iPhone and Android devices dominated mobile traffic, accounting for about 87% of such, while Blackberry use fell sharply from 27% to 13% over the quarter.
• King of recreational traffic slowly declines: Facebook use increased by about 25% over Q4, while LinkedIn transactions decreased by almost 35%. Interestingly, overall Facebook usage declined over the year from 52% of all web application use in Q1 to 42% in Q4, a possible result of the drop in customer satisfaction throughout the year due to various security incidents
• Outdated plug-ins continue to be attack vector: while Zscaler ThreatLabZ observed that Adobe Shockwave was the most outdated browser plug-in during Q3 at 94% outdated of all those installed, there's been a dramatic shift in Q4. Shockwave is down to 52% outdated of all installed, and Adobe Reader tops the list at 61%. Hackers are aware that large amounts of users continue to run outdated pug-ins, and use it as an easy attack vector.
• Botnets top Q4 threats: Botnets comprised the majority of threats seen in December at 80% of Zscaler blocks. Malicious URLs followed far behind at 14%, while a mere 3% of threats blocked that month were identified by Anti-Virus/signature detection.
• Browser marketshare shifts: Internet Explorer use in the enterprise follows a slow decline, down to 53% in Q4 from 58% in Q3. Meanwhile, Chrome usage saw a big jump from .17% of all web browser use in Q3 to 5% in Q4, while Safari saw a decline from 7% in Q3 to 4% in Q4. Firefox usage remained constant at 10%.
• Enterprises move to more secure version of Internet Explorer: IE 8 has more than doubled in the enterprise over 2011, from 26% of overall Internet Explorer traffic in January to 55% in December, noting that enterprises are moving to newer and more secure web browsers; however, IE 9 adoption remains very low.

For more information, visit http://threatlabz.com/.

SOURCE: Zscaler ThreatLabZ