Top Cyber Security Trends That You Cannot Afford

Cybersecurity now happens to be considered as a critical risk to the business by the people on the board. This trend will only accelerate as the boards demand more understanding and clarity in areas that were often just seen as the concerns of the CIOs.

The reputational, financial, and indeed some C-level employment risks that cyber breach has shall continue to drive boards to focus on Cybersecurity on their agenda.

There are a few attacks that you cannot miss while drafting cybersecurity practice in your enterprise. We have enumerated below attacks that are worth considering in today’s world.

Man-in-the-Middle Attacks:

An SSL certificate represents itself as a green good-looking padlock that appears next to the website URL. It was created to make sure that the data exchange between the server and browser via SSL encrypted secure channel. This protects the parties involved in the communication from any possible intrusions like the “Man in the middle” attack. Yes, you heard the right word.

A Man in the Middle (MITM) attack is a cyber-attack that works by a hacker placing himself on the communication channel and impersonating one of them.

This means that the client/server makes a connection with the hacker, not the intended party. The client is made to think that it is connected to the server, yet the hacker can read, view and modify the data that is being transmitted.

It refers to an eavesdropping attack and happens in real-time conversations, it allows attackers to intercept, send and receive data. MITM attacks take place where login or authentication is required in the communication channel.

DDoS – Distributed Denial of Service:

A DDoS attack is an ill-willed attempt targeted towards disrupting the normal flow of traffic a given server, network or service by consuming the target or the surrounded infrastructure using a flood of traffic. DDoS attacks work by utilizing a lot or compromised computers to generate the source of attack traffic.

The machines that are exploited may include computers or other resources on the network such as IoT devices. DDoS attacks work like traffic jams that clog up the information highway, which prevents regular traffic from reaching its intended destination.

DDoS continues to a bid headache for many companies, and these attacks are likely to continue growing through 2019, along with the costs of protecting them. However, DDoS attacks do not make the news, unless that involves a big brand or company or if the site is taken down for an extended period.

And, the victim, in this case, does not want to generate any bad publicity that will draw attention to its weak defenses for cyber-attacks. This is just something that works do not well for the functionality of the organization.

The cost of initiating a DDoS attack is relatively low, most times shockingly low with the rewards being rapid – it is the victim who must pay to get rid of the cyber-attack. In addition to this, cryptocurrencies have helped in money transfers in such scenarios.

The cost, however, for the victim continues to be much higher than the ransom they must pay, as it involves analysis of the system, reconstruction and, and eventually defense against the next DDoS attack.

Shadow IT Systems:

Shadow IT systems, created without the explicit approval of the organization, continue to increase, along with the number of apps and touch points to the systems, which also includes legacy applications.

When we speak of shadow IT systems, they are tough to defend as it is, and in the cases of many access points and applications, especially if they are related to abandoned or old applications, they become challenging to defend or even identify.

In both these cases, they form a smooth surface for attack with a lot of oversight, budget challenges, and internal politics, and have not been historically given enough priority to resolve them.

There has been, however, an increase in the awareness for attacks via this channel, and has been seeing an increase in the attacks, a number that is expected to increase in the future also.

IoT:

Some of the security challenges of IoT are already being observed, but 2019 will be witnessing an accelerated upward trend in the security concerns with this technology. IoT, as a technology, is known to provide a lot in terms of benefits and convenience, and thus the technology is finding adoption at a lot of companies.

This, however, is not been done by putting enough thought by a lot of people towards the security risks and possible consequences.

Since most of the IoT installations happen far away from the leading networks of the companies, they tend to slip under the radar. In the lack of a standard, or at least a perceived requirement for security, IoT deployments will continue to happen, thus creating insecurity even in those areas that were secure previously.

It is rather difficult or sometimes even impossible for a large percentage of IoT deployments to be able to fit in the existing security scheme. This means that not being able to segment the networks will lead to further challenges that will be created by IoT deployments in 2019 and further beyond

Malware:

Malware is any software that has been written with the intention of causing harm to people, devices or data. When you talk of trojans, viruses, spyware and harmful software like that, what you are talking about is different types of malware.

Crypto mining, ransomware, VPN filters, and banking Trojans are some of the main challenges thrown by malware, and they continue to be a threat to consumers and businesses. Live monitoring undertaken by Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, and scores of others has demonstrated that the way the risks are mixed may vary during each year, but the damaging result of these malware threats will be bad in 2019.

Increased sophistication of attacks will be observed in certain areas like ransomware, which, along with new approaches to malware formations and growing volume of malware in some other areas, will pose to be a real challenge. Traditional Anti-Virus software will not be able to provide the required level of protection.

Organizations need solutions that directly focus on malware, along with tracking any network activity, both outside and inside the network. Cybersecurity vultures has predicted that the damage costs of ransomware will be increasing drastically in 2019; it means that the threat is not going away any time soon.

Conclusion:

So, as you can see, the intensity of cyber-attacks is increasing day by day. With all these threats looking up in 2019, make sure that you are fully prepared and have good back up plans in case you do get attacked. Do have a security plan in place to counter all these and more cyber-attacks that may not only impact your networks but your business as well in 2019.

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