In addition, he says, there will be an increase in the number of malware related attacks through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, with a single attack affecting thousands – or even millions – of people.
Hackers, he adds, will use malware that copies a user's address book and sends out malicious emails/files to all their friends. Just like the old email scams, the malicious file will look like it has been sent from the initial target so recipients will trust the source.
"We can also expect to see more 'information warfare'-type attacks on nation states. The political motivation in the attacks will increase, even though the attacks with a financial motivation will clearly remain dominant", he said.
In addition, the Stonesoft CISO noted, there will be a rise in targeted `social engineering' attacks.
Sophisticated hackers, he predicts, will undertake thorough investigations of people in order to penetrate corporate networks for significant financial gain.
"This will hopefully result in organisations taking more time to educate staff on cyber-crime, but maybe not. After all, the human factor has long been the weak link in the security chain", he said.
On top of this, Airamo says that the industry will see more attacks in the vein of Stuxnet.
The target, he says, will be critical infrastructure, such as government and military systems. The attacks will remain rare because hackers need to be very well resourced in order to build a virus of this magnitude.
"Stuxnet was made up of four zero-day vulnerabilities and the one used also by the Conficker worm. Its complexity and the expense of developing the virus both point in the direction of it being a government sponsored attack", he said.
Finally, he added, the smartphone is set to become a more prominent target for hackers in 2011, largely because the volume of smartphones sold in 2011 will start to reach the number of PCs sold and installed.