Change is the only constant—this has rung true in many facets of 2021. Things are no different for the cybersecurity landscape. Decentralization of data due to remote work, globalization of workforces, and the emerging popularity of cryptocurrencies, have pushed IT security to build stronger and more flexible modules to ensure relevance and functionality. Following suit, the sophistication of cyberattacks has evolved, too.
Here are the top 4 predictions on cybersecurity trends from security experts:
Ransomware attacks have gained a lot of traction due the widespread use of cryptocurrency, because ransom payments made using Bitcoins and Ethereum can't be easily tracked to any specific bank account. These attacks have developed so drastically that many attackers no longer have to build their own ransomware. They can avail it as a pay-per-use service from the dark web.
Usually, the threat actors encrypt important resources after infiltrating an organization and set a ransom for the decryption key. Now, they also exfiltrate the resources to a different location for other purposes such as leaking or recurring income through ransom.
Given these trends, we can be sure that more organizations are going to fall prey to ransomware attacks in 2022.
Irrespective of age, gender, or socioeconomic status, nearly everyone these days owns a mobile phone. Each tap and click on these private devices creates an exhaustive amount of data. Proper maintenance of this data is currently a major concern. This includes storage of, usage of, access to, and destruction of this data according to a suitable timeline. Data privacy laws and regulations have been evolving with these new developments, and ensuring compliance can be incredibly complicated.
Phishing attacks are engineered to steal sensitive information from the victim, such as email passwords and credit card details. This is usually achieved by getting the victim to enter this information on a fake site that mimics a legitimate one. For threat actors, one such stolen credential can be the key to the entire security infrastructure of an organization.
While it's often attacks on major companies, like when GoDaddy suffered a phishing attack, that make the news, don't think small and medium size businesses are immune to these types of threats. In 2021, over 44.7% of small businesses and 49.2% of medium-sized businesses were subject to some kind of phishing attacks. Source: KnowBe4
Looking at these numbers, we can predict an increase in phishing attacks this year.
The number of data breaches peaked in 2021. Yet, the number of direct individuals impacted has dropped. This proves that the attackers have shifted their focus from individual victims to businesses that store customer information, ensuring higher returns. Since personally identifiable information is readily available, there has been a shift from identity theft to identity fraud, which deals with the misuse of the stolen information. The rise in identity fraud has made end users wary of many new technologies, such as payment gateways and communication channels.
Although cyberattacks and crimes have advanced exponentially, IT security concepts to combat them have also advanced. A star performer amongst these is the Zero Trust model. As the name suggests, this concept proposes a security infrastructure with zero trust: every access request will be time-bound and thoroughly verified before being approved. This model can combat various cyberattacks as static access doesn't exist in this model.
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