It should come as no surprise that cybersecurity experts are anticipating the sophistication of attacks and malware threats to grow in 2012. From organized networks of black hat hackers such as Anonymous to state-sponsored cyber espionage originating in China and Russia, threats will expand and continue to affect both personal data and critical infrastructure.

Despite cyber event such as Stuxnet, experts are hesitant to call all-out cyber war, and note that even in an era of sophisticated attacks data mining remains the most effective brand of cyber espionage used today.

"People still represent the weakest link in security for a large amount of enterprises and that is the reason they are targeted," Rik Ferguson, director of security research and communication at Trend Micro was quoted as saying in Computerworld. "Training still has an important place in an organisation’s security planning but it needs to be ongoing training, not a one-time only event."

As fast as companies and security professionals can be at alerting their staff to new or emerging threats, the efforts of malicious attackers often outpace those efforts. As cheesy as it sounds, every user on every network needs to have constant vigilence in their online actions.

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