Future Trends in
Cybersecurity
What are the emerging trends in technology and security?
The cybersecurity industry is one of the fastest changing ones because of a
combination of reasons – proliferation of attackers and their tactics, the increasing number and changing
sensitivity of targets, new and more powerful vectors of attack being discovered regularly and so on.
One of the side effects of this chaotic state of cybersecurity is that it is often
quite hard to predict trends that will shape it in the future, either short or long term one. Still, anyone with
their ear to the ground can notice a few trends that will definitely stay with us for some time to come.
So, what are these?
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By staying up to date with the emerging technological
and cybersecurity trends
you will be better equipped to deal with the innevitable new
challenges. |
Willingness to Learn
It has been more than a few years since cybersecurity experts started warning
people in the world of business that everyone should learn at least the very basics of cybersecurity. For a long
time, the majority of people not directly involved in IT neglected these warnings, but this has started to change
and it is probably safe to say that this positive trend will continue. Executives and managers have finally become
aware of the dangers data breaches pose for their companies and they are catching up.
More importantly, more and more companies are taking employee cybersecurity education and
training an important part of their day-to-day practices, which will
only make things better in the future.
In addition to this, executives and managers are finally starting to see the value
of established cybersecurity standards and procedures that provide a layered protection to corporate systems – via
third-party vendor verification, penetration testing,
cybersecurity policies and so on.
At least that is one thing to be optimistic about when it comes to our corporate
cybersecurity future.
Cyber Attacks as Business
The recent rise in ransomware attacks on various organizations around the world
could be traced to more than a few reasons. One of those reasons has been the fact that cryptocurrencies allow hackers to receive
ransoms without fearing getting caught during money
transactions.
As a result of this, hacker groups are being organized like regular small
businesses where people pull off ransomware and other kinds of attacks and getting what is, more or less, a regular
paycheck for this.
As bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies become even more widespread than they are
today, this will only become more prominent, with organized crime opening up entire "companies" with working
hackers and half-hackers, hitting targets around the world and extorting money out of people.
Law enforcement agencies worldwide agree that the only way to stop this is to stop
paying the attackers, but sometimes people do it because it is cheaper and more convenient.
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One of the modern technological trends is creation of
the Internet of Things,
making a growing number of essential technology
cyber-connected,
increasing chances of serious cyber attacks that can literally
affect
the entire countries, as we have already unfortuanetyl seen in news. |
The Danger of Internet of Things
This summer, a North American casino got its data breached via a connected fish
tank which lacked any kind of protection and which allowed
attackers further access to the casino's systems.
It is probably to this day the most damning example of the dangers that
connected internet of things devices present and that have to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, no seems to be doing anything to this end. More and more people are
purchasing devices which are (for some reason) connected to the internet and which rarely feature any kind of
protection against intrusions by hackers and other kinds of attackers.
In the case of the casino, the story was more comedy than horror, but this can
easily change as attacks like this happen to hospitals, power plants and other extremely sensitive organizations
whose compromise might put lives in danger.
IoT devices will continue to be targeted and someone has to do something about
this.
Cybersecurity and Politics
The saga of the Russian hacking of the American presidential
election is only heating up, adding to the already sensitive issue
of cybersecurity and worldwide politics. For years, there has been talk about Chinese government-backed hackers
attacking western countries and vice-versa and, the way things are at the moment, this is something that will
not end soon.
At the moment, the global cyber-attack games are still being played in gloves and
we are still seeing a certain type of an equilibrium being maintained, either on purpose or accidentally, it is
hard to say.
Unfortunately, this kind of equilibrium is unlikely to be sustainable in the long
run and it is hard to see how its disruption will not have dramatic effects on global politics.
Let's imagine, for example, that a hacker group that is more or less directly
linked to Republic of China's government does something as dramatic as shuts down the power grid for half of the
United States. The word gets to the press and everyone finds out about it. It suddenly becomes very difficult for
everyone to stay calm and do nothing openly.
It is a scary proposition and we do not like to make people paranoid, but we
simply have to understand that cybersecurity and politics will stay interconnected for a long time to come in our
future.
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