Cybersecurity Predictions: What to expect in 2018?

Credit to Author: Rajib Singha| Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2017 13:08:50 +0000

At the risk of being pessimistic, I’d say that 2017 wasn’t such as a great year for cybersecurity. Why? Well, where do I begin? 2017 – a quick flashback 2017 was riddled with cybersecurity mayhems: WannaCry – the biggest ransomware attack in history; took down over 300,000 computers worldwide, closely followed by Petya (later classified as NotPetya) which, according to many experts, cost affected organizations 10 times more than WannaCry. Then came the Equifax (a consumer credit reporting agency) data breach exposing credit card numbers of over 209,000 people. And just when we thought that the worst was over, the Bad Rabbit ransomware reared its head out of its hiding place costing some major organizations hundreds of millions of dollars. And the cherry on the cake was the Uber hack. The hack happened in 2016 but the fact that the management hid the incident from its users for almost a year and paid the hacker a ‘shut up’ money does qualify it to be one of the major cybersecurity incidents of 2017. And these, for troubling reasons, are just a few of several other several incidents that were afoot in 2017: HBO hack, Deloitte hack, Forever 21 hack, Imgur hack, and the allegations on antivirus firm Kaspersky being involved in a Russian government hack of an NSA contractor in 2015. Phew! The list is never ending. So, circling back to the question – was 2017 a good year for cybersecurity? Well, think twice before saying yes. Cybersecurity predictions for 2018 To make a long story short – 2018 is going to be much worse for cybersecurity. As much pessimistic as this prediction may sound, it should be an eye-opener for businesses and individuals. Day by day we are clinging to technology, increasing our dependencies on it, and sharing our data with almost every digital object we use. It’s a click-and-done world we live in. But, when it comes to securing our digital selves, we are as primitive as the first computer. Case in point: the worst password used by most people in 2017 is ‘123456’ (study conducted by SplashData). Our complacent attitude towards cybersecurity is one of the major reasons why cybercriminals will get the better of us in 2018 as well. Starting off with the predictions, here they are: #1. Ransomware will become more vicious This a fairly obvious and logical cybersecurity prediction for 2018 – deductible from the success rate of ransomware and their growth in 2017. Ransomware is no more just a malware category but it has evolved into a fully functional business thanks to Ransomware-as-a-Service: seasoned coders create ransomware and sell them to beginners or novice criminals on the online black market. Ransomware hits businesses and individuals where it hurts the most – their data. And because these attacks pay off well, attackers will strengthen their encryption techniques and work on advanced methods to beat antivirus software. In addition to that, most ransomware creators ask ransom in cryptocurrency like Bitcoins whose value have started going through the roof – a sort of encouragement for cyber crooks to work harder on their ransomware business. 2. Crpytojacking – a new menace to deal with If you haven’t been paying attention, cryptocurrencies (digital or virtual currency like Bitcoin) have skyrocketed in the recent few months. During the time when this article was written, 1 Bitcoin was worth $15,400. That’s a lot of money in there; which brings us to ‘cryptojacking’. Cryptojacking refers to secretly mining cryptocurrency (generating digital cash) by a website using the resources of your computer usually without your knowledge. How is this harmful? It is estimated that a single Bitcoin transaction (which happens in cryptojacking) consumes 215 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of energy causing significant system slowdown and spiked electricity bills. Now, cryptojacking might be used by legitimate sites as a revenue stream instead of serving their visitors with pesky advertisements – which makes sense in a way. But, the fact that, this entire thing goes on without the user consent still makes it malicious. Looking at cryptojacking from an angle of cybercrime – there is another side to it. Hackers might inject mining codes into legitimate websites (without the website owner’s nor its visitor’s knowledge) to generate…
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