Security Watch 2018

January 23, 2018

2017 was quite a year for cyberattacks, including:

  • Equifax: A breach that led to the theft of personal information for hundreds of millions of US citizens.
  • Shadow Brokers: A hacking group that sold Windows exploits they allegedly stole from the NSA.
  • Google Docs: A sophisticated phishing scam that tried to compromise victims’ email accounts.
  • WannaCry: A ransomware attack that affected thousands of organizations, even harming hospitals in the UK.
  • Petya: Another ransomware attack that followed on the heels of WannaCry, affecting organizations in multiple countries.
  • Vault 7: A breach of the US Central Intelligence Agency that led to sensitive documents being published by WikiLeaks.

The experts expect that 2018 will be far worse and here is why:

Cybercrime has gone professional over the last 5 years. Attacks have become much more sophisticated and intense. The bad guys are now going after your employees. They bypass your firewall/antivirus security software and social engineer your employees to click on a malicious link or open an infected attachment.

From that point forward, they hack into your network and put keyloggers on accounting systems. You can guess the rest. A few days later the organisation’s bank accounts are empty, or valuable corporate intellectual property is stolen. Another cyberheist victim.

Social Engineering is the No. 1 go-to strategy for the bad guys. They are going after the human—the weakest link in IT security—and your last line of defence.

Ransomware is only going to get worse in 2018. Email is still their favourite attack vector, and their sophistication is increasing by the month. The downtime caused by ransomware can be massive.

Ransomware, the threat that seemed to smash all other cybersecurity topics in 2017, is still evolving by the day, and experts said companies should expect more sophisticated attacks in the new year.

Highly targeted phishing attempts, possibly powered by artificial intelligence; greater risks to shutting down industrial operations; and an increasing regulatory burden on preventing ransomware attacks are all part of the picture companies will need to consider in 2018.


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