Websense has predicted that in the year 2007, organized criminals will join forces with hackers to form a more organized cybercrime economy.

According to Websense, cyber-criminals will buy, sell, and trade hot commodities such as ready-made cyber-attack toolkits and exploits to carry out zero-day vulnerabilities.

While in 2006, cybercrime and the evolution of new cyber-criminals increased; in 2007, Websense expects underground cybercrime to become better organized. As part of that growing cybercrime economy, the market for zero-day attack code will become more competitive. This will result in an increase in the number of zero-day attacks, and more forceful attacks on both the client and server-side.

In a statement, Dan Hubbard, Vice President of Security Research, Websense, explained that organised criminals are realising that the Internet has been a largely untapped resource in terms of generating real profit, until now. With financial gain on the table, attack methods are improving, and the number of people involved is escalating.

Hubbard also pointed out that tools and exploits to steal personal, business, and financial information are the hottest commodities for cyber-criminals. Next year in particular, it is highly important for organizations to have preventive measures in place to protect themselves from the next wave of increasingly covert and targeted attacks.

Websense security experts also predict that Web 2.0 security issues will escalate as these technologies are being rolled out in mass with security as an afterthought. Comprising an estimated 80 percent of the top 20 most visited Web sites, such as MySpace and Wikipedia, Web 2.0 sites are a growing phenomenon. Web 2.0 areas of concern are user-created content, social networks, and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services.

Besides, the Web will continue to be the number one infection vector for malicious code designed to steal information, which is evolving at a rapid pace in both numbers and in attack sophistication.

Additionally, Websense also predicts a rise in exploits in anti-phishing toolbar technology, the enhanced concealment of data to evade leakage prevention, and increased use of encryption and custom packing of Bots.