5 Cybersecurity Trends that will Impact 2022
The world is a little different these days due to the Coronavirus pandemic. It has been something that cybercriminals have successfully taken advantage of. This can be perfectly illustrated by the SolarWinds hack that Microsoft President Brad Smith called the most sophisticated cyberattack of all time.
As the pandemic continues into 2022, so does the reality that many businesses are still having employees work from home. A work-from-home environment means opportunity for phishers, hackers, scammers and extortionists – with no signs of letting up.
With the ongoing risk of a cybersecurity attack threatening not only work-from-home environments, but also organizations both big and small, here are 5 of the biggest cybersecurity trends in 2022 to make yourself aware of:
AI-Powered Cybersecurity
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a very powerful tool in identifying cybersecurity threats in efforts to make sure an attack does not occur. AI can counteract cybercrime with its ability to identify patterns and behaviors that can alert you that something out-of-the-ordinary is taking place. This can be done in systems where thousands of “events” take place every second.
AI’s ability to predict make it incredibly useful. This is why companies will invest time and money into AI-Powered cybersecurity solutions in 2022.
Conversely, cybercriminals are aware of the benefits of AI, and are creating new threats that use machine learning to evade AI-powered solutions. This makes AI even more essential – as AI is the only hope to counteract AI-Powered attacks.
Ransomware
The UK National Cyber Security Centre said that there were three times as many ransomware attacks in the first quarter of 2021 that there were in all of 2019. Security experts expect this to increase in 2022.
Ransomware infects devices with a virus that locks files away and threatens to destroy or make them public if ransom isn’t paid. Whether deployed through a phishing attack, direct infection through a USB stick, or one of many other ways – staying informed on how to tackle the threat of ransomware is critical to help stop a ransomware attack in its tracks.
The Internet of Things
The number of connected devices – known as the internet of things – is expected to reach 18 billion devices in 2022. This leaves plenty of opportunity for cybercriminals to gain access to a connected device.
The IoT is a threat because it can start with hackers using connected household appliances like refrigerators or kettles to gain access to a network, and from there accessing computers or phones where much more valuable information might reside.
As is the case with ransomware – education is the best defense against attacks on your IoT devices.
Cybersecurity Risk and Exposure a Factor in Partnership Decisions
Any cybersecurity operation is only as secure as its weakest link – which means teams see every link as a possible vulnerability. Because of this, businesses will increasingly use cybersecurity resilience and exposure as a determing factor in choosing who they will partner with in 2022.
New Gartner’s research predicts that by 2025, 60% of organizations will use cybersecurity risk as a “primary determinant” when deciding who to conduct business with.
With legislation following in the wake of the European General Data Protection Regulation, such as the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law and the Californian Consumer Privacy Act, more organizations can face very large penalties for information security slip-ups. As such, every partner that potentially has access to an organization’s data or systems will be meticulously vetted.
Regulation to Catch up with Risk
For years, cybercriminals act on the notion that knowledge of their activity is weak due to the rapidly changing nature of technology. Cybercrime is estimated to have cost over $6 trillion in 2021. With this said, 2022 is set to be the year where regulators do whatever they have to in order to get on top of the situation. One consequence of this could be to expand penalty that currently only covers break and loss – to also cover vulnerabilities and exposure to potential damage. Another might be an increasing number of jurisdictions that would pass laws relating to making payments in response to ransomware attacks.
Story via Forbes
