Zscaler ThreatLabZ releases Q4 2011 ‘State of the Web’ report

IRCRE201204094
Date: 2012-04-16

Zscaler is a cloud security provider that regularly releases "State of the web" reports every quarter. Zscaler monitors 200 billion transactions from millions of business users across the globe traversing the Zscaler cloud. In conducting that surveillance, ZScaler walked away with the following observations.

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 Outdated plug-ins continue to be attack vector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 percent outdated of all those installed, there’s been a dramatic shift in Q4. Shockwave is down to 52 percent outdated of all installed, and Adobe Reader tops the list at 61 percent. Hackers are aware that large amounts of users continue to run outdated plug-ins, and use it as an easy attack vector.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