The Future of Cyber Attacks

The need for cybersecurity has existed ever since the emergence of the first computer virus. The ‘creeper virus’ was created in 1971 and could duplicate itself across computers. Also, the threat landscape is emerging with the evolution of new technologies such as AI, Immersive Experience, Voice Economy, Cloud computing, and others. Threat actors upgrade their tools and tactics by designing new strategies to perpetrate their nefarious aims. Cyberthreats are growing in both scale and complexity, and the need to secure critical infrastructure by businesses and public organizations has never been as urgent as now. This article examined how cyberattacks have evolved in the past 12 months, the big lessons, what threats will look like in the future, and strategies companies can deploy to secure their endpoints and data against cyberattacks. Key Cyberattacks in the last 12 months 1. Phishing attack in the era of Covid-19 Threat actors send a message to deceive people into downloading or clicking a malicious link. During the Great Lockdown of 2020, many people were working from home. Cybercriminals leverage this opportunity as businesses and communication entirely depend on the internet. A report by the FBI revealed phishing to be the most popular form of cybercrime in 2020, and the incident reported nearly doubled ( 241,324) what was recorded in 2019, which was 114,702. 2. The Notorious Ransomware Attack The ransomware attack was profitable for threat actors in the last 12 months. Ransomware locks files on the victims’ system and redirects them to a page to pay a ransom to have their files returned. A notable example was the Cyrat ransomware which was masked as software for fixing corrupted DLL files on a computer system. According to Reuters , over 1500 businesses have been affected so far. 3. Attacks on IoT and IIoT The adoption of the Internet of Things(IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things at both the individual and industrial levels also leads to concerns around cybersecurity. These connected devices make our lives easier, and when not properly configured and secured, they could also leak our sensitive data to the bad guys. In 2020, an IoT botnet employed vulnerable access control systems in office buildings. As a result, someone accessing the building by swiping a keycard may be ignorant that the system has been infected. 4. Password Compromise A security survey conducted by Google revealed that about 52% of people reuse passwords across different sites. It means a cybercriminal can successfully access all accounts by breaching a single account. As a result, password attacks remain a top attack vector for most organizations. In the same survey, 42% of the people ticked security breaches due to a password compromise. A notable example was a list of leaked passwords found on a hacker forum. It was said to be the most extensive collection of all time. About 100GB text file which includes 8.4 billion passwords collated from past data breaches. You can type your details in https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to know if your email or password has been breached. 5. Identity Theft Cases of Theft doubled from 2019 to 2020 based on a report by the Federal Trade Commission of the United States. The commission received around 1.400.000 cases. Most cases include threat actors targeting individuals affected by the pandemic financially. Cybercriminals also leveraged the unemployment benefits reserved for those affected by the pandemic. The fraudsters clai…