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Trends and Security Threats for last Year

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Trends and Security Threats 

While some of these trends started in the last decade or even the last century they are expected to continue and multiply, others will bring new challenges for security professionals.

 

36 inch chest, 28 inch waist, 35inch hip, yes we thought it was a young sexy lady too!

Internet of things IoT

The number of connected “things” is outpacing the ability to make them secure, many devices will have little security built in and they will give access to the “Hub” and therefore the network both in the home and in the business and the speed and appetite for new items will exacerbate the problem. Connected devices need flexible access to service the items and that means that today many organisations are migrating their application servers to the cloud. The ‘Hello Kitty’ and Talk Talk hacks just before Christmas is just the start, what will be the hack of the year!

 

Households and network managers are going to find their hardware and networks compromised from new angles in the connectivity system, such as kettles, fridges, micro-waves, printers, scanners, 4G Cars, Drones, air conditioning as a method to invade and compromise building systems. The house hold equipment will be in contact with company networks and Black Trojan attacks such as experienced in Ukraine, will be another access point. The Ukraine attack is presently being investigated by the CIA, supposedly it was orchestrated by the Russians (Sic).

E-Wallets/Mobile Wallets will become the next generation for payments and, as a result, we will see an increase in targeted attacks on Smart devices and the Bit-coin will gain part acceptance in Africa.

Social media and dating websites the like of Ashley Madison will continue to be the biggest source of Data breach following the various cyber-attacks made on them? Those vulnerable individuals will carry on with false personal descriptions (young professional) and statistics (36 inch chest, 28 inch waist, 35inch hips and age) but real credit card details.

 Hand held payment devices.

Finger print security

Hand held devices were the weak point of transactions and will continue to be the major threat. During the last decade, we have seen the future with fingerprint banking. No card No pin. Many security systems are emerging some utilising the veins contained in your finger prints. Other systems involve logging in using a mobile phone, taking a picture of you finger or 4 fingers.

Until banks accept or chose to pay for the new technology we can expect more headlines about credit card information being stolen in bulk. The ongoing problems with lax security configuration, weak passwords and third party access. Despite the increased security promised by EMV (Chip and Pin) standards, hackers will find plenty of opportunities to exploit rushed deployments, customer and cashier confusion and aging point of sale systems, yet to be replaced.

Veins contained in your finger prints

The third world

The third world will overtake us as far as finger print banking is concerned. Finger print recognition has been utilised for voting and border control for a number of years, funded by concerned governments. As many members of the population are already registered it makes natural sense to build a banking system around the database.

Ransomware and DDOS

Ransomware and DDOS attacks will continue to grow, where the “victim” actually pays the ransom. Mostly as a business decision as opposed to traditional ransom where payment is demanded for the return of a loved one and is frowned upon.  In the USA The FBI said it received 992 CryptoWall complaints representing total pay-outs of $18 million in reported cases from April 2014 to June 2015. But how many were not reported, criminals are finding this very lucrative and they will continue producing virus and bot-nets that are harder to detect and repel.

Low hanging fruit

Companies of all sizes and types will have to deal with breaches and lost data. While breaches at major, global organisations will continue to make headlines, cyber criminals will look for the path of least resistance and pursue smaller businesses. As enterprise security programs improve, the cyber criminals will look for low hanging fruit and the fresh opportunities by pursuing unsuspecting SMEs.

Cash Cow

Cyber security is a cash cow. As quickly as new security mechanisms are being developed, cybercriminals are cultivating new techniques to bypass them. For many years various proponents have questioned the source of viruses and we are sure that many game keepers have turned poachers, just to justify their existence as game keepers!

The cloud has given us a much larger estate (for game) with many more access points. It’s important for businesses of all sizes to take time to thoroughly assess their organisation’s ability to defend its data, networks, employees and customers. Every business should resolve to strengthen cyber security capabilities for the future.

Cash Cow

As a Service

Through the last year it has been apparent or even obvious that Managed Service Providers have both prospered and died Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is here to stay, due mostly to its availability and ease of delivery. So the companies that have prospered, generally already have a market and their supply-chain has been massively simplified and benefitted from savings.

The “cloud vendors” who have died or if they are lucky have been acquired provide the industry’s easiest to deploy and manage solution for protection against today’s multi-vector threats offering Infrastructure and platforms as a Service.