The start of the new year has brought some of the most exciting events that are slated to take place in the world of information & technology. One of them being the official launch of Google’s very own in-house designed and developed operating system, called Google Chrome OS. The new OS was announced way back in the month of July last year and will be available on netbooks in the latter half of 2010.

However, as with any other high profile software launch, Google Chrome OS would also become one of the sweetest targets for hackers and computer miscreants this year. As per security experts, the use of the newly born HTML 5 (Hypertext Markup Language) in Chrome OS will be one of the factors that could be exploited by hackers as the new language empower developers to create applications and features, right inside a webpage, without the need of a dedicated third party plug-in such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight etc.

According to Sam Masiello (Director, Threat Management, McAfee),

“It’ll be the new kid on the block, that’s one of the primary drivers why we think cybercriminals will target Chrome OS. The same thing happened to Windows Vista and Windows 7, even before they were finished. Since Chrome OS is new, it’s going to be of interest to security researchers, and it’s going to be poked by cyber criminals as well. As we move toward the advent of rich Internet applications, the lines are blurring between online and offline. Cybercriminals will be able to attack users when they’re offline, as well as on.”

The security threat for Google’s applications isn’t’ only confined to Chrome OS, security experts also believe that the newly launched communication service, Google Wave will also prove helpful to hackers and cyber criminals. This is largely due to the fact that, Google Wave uses XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), that would allow the hackers to control bots on various computers all at once.

Via Computer World.