Does IM stand for insecure messaging?
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5...=zdfd.newsfeed
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most of which rely for their proliferation on ignorance of their existence among users and IT administrators.
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the best way to help people protect themselves is to instill the same distrust regarding Web links or attachments sent via IM that they have been taught to apply to e-mail.
Which do you think is the greater culprit, in this case, the software or the user?
From most of what I've read it doesn't seem like the client software has been exploited until the user took ill advised action.
Instant Messaging Continues to Advance as an Attack Vector for Hackers to Gain Access
http://www.wwwcoder.com/main/parenti...6/default.aspx
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IM's acceptance rate continues to grow. In fact, industry research firm IDC predicts that there will be over 450 million worldwide users of consumer and business IM products by the end of 2007
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Today, Websense Security Labs has discovered highly sophisticated IM attacks that spread malicious code and worms directly into an organization without any end-user intervention. Hackers have now begun to utilize IM as a new vector for phishing and pharming scams, by sending out mass messages to thousands of IM users which request the recipient to click on a link which takes them to a fraudulent website. These malicious or fraudulent sites either request personal information from the end user or automatically download and run keyloggers, worms or viruses on the user's machine-creating an open backdoor for hackers.
Every article user clicks this user clicks that. How many years have they been preaching discretion with e-mail. Hopefully it won't take as many years for people to realize the same risks apply to IM and virtually everything else they do on their computers.