Response 1: After having a year as complicated as the pandemic and with the rise of teleworking, most of the security incidents associated with computing in the cloud have been due to credentials stolen or obtained through phishing or configuration errors that have been translated In security breaches, after COVID-19 2021 brings us malware, ransomware attacks but also new vulnerabilities associated with teleworking, mobile phones or the criminal exploitation of the IT departments’ own security tools.
Since the confinements for COVID-19 began in March 2020, everything has changed. From the way we work and attend events to passing virtual classes, teleworking and computing in the cloud have been key but have also provided more vulnerable environments cyberthreats by expanding the security perimeter of companies in domestic networks. Companies have been impacted in several very clear phases
Companies are forced to add new firewalls and other security devices, we are talking about modern unified threat management systems.
There is a more and more limited supply of physical equipment and companies are realizing that employees should not use personal devices from home to access the VPN. The solution is through a computer workspace with secure virtual desktops.
In addition, IT departments have to support hundreds or thousands of telecommuters, requiring tools to securely inventory and configure virtual server infrastructure, virtual desktops, and other cloud services.
The reality is that in 2021, in addition to malware and ransomware attacks, new vulnerabilities derived from:
Excessive access permit
Limited visibility of assets and resources
Lack of audit.
The attacks will not only be directed at large companies but also at civil society (
Public safety and local government), individual computers and home users.
Although the vast majority of security incidents in 2020 have been related to desktops or laptops, Windows or Linux server platforms will continue to be constantly targeted and used to attack businesses from within. It will be analyzed that the volume of attacks aimed at straining will increase. We are talking about: ransomware, crypto miners and data exfiltration.
The majority of attacks will continue to involve regular malware distributed by conventional means, typically consisting of a spam email, a benign-looking attachment or link, and a lot of motivation for the recipient to open that attachment.
Response 2: According to Chuck Brooks on Forbes, there are 3 main cybersecurity trends to focus on: 1) the expanding cyber-attack surface (remote work, IoT supply chain), 2) Ransomware as a cyber weapon of choice, 3) threats to critical infrastructure via ICS, OT/IT cyber-threat convergence. These 3 main threats have already costed billions to the organizations, consumers, and governments around the world and will continue to do so in near future.
COVID19 push to the digital transformation speeded up the expansion of cyber attacks surface by the increased sales of IoT devices and more remotely working employees around the world. There will be 75 billion IT devices by 2025 according to CISCO, which states that the surface is expanding very fast. Nearly half of the US labor force is working from home approximately today. These home offices are more open to threats. Companies must take more security measures to keep the remote endpoints secure on their networks. Phishing attacks or attacks targeting business email credentials continue to increase in 2020. In BlackBerry’s 2020 report, it is stated that those who work from home offer more opportunities to attackers. 46% of organizations have had at least one employee download a malicious mobile application in 2020 according to Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
The other most important threat is ransomware attacks. Criminal groups threaten organizations internationally with different type of cyberattacks every day. A business or consumer will experience ransomware attack every 5 seconds. Number of ransomware attacks to the organizations have decreased in 2020, however their impact has increased. These groups have been attacking more specific targets to increase their illicit profit. With the rise of cryptocurrency last couple years, criminals have changed the purpose of attacks and now they target the big money. According to X-Force data from 2020, a Russian speaking private ransomware operation named Sodinokibi or REvil, collect $123 million as revenue in 2020 leaving an estimated 250 victimized organizations behind. The group is mostly attacking the US based organizations and never targets a country in Commonwealth of Independent States according to Wikipedia. Shortly, cybercrime-as-a-service is a growing business model and will cause a lot of trouble for the companies.
Lastly, cyberattacks on the critical infrastructure like transportation, energy, and healthcare are growing in numbers every year. Such attacks have huge impacts on large scale of population. There are more topics to discuss regarding cybersecurity trends such as cloud computing race and the security problems coming with it, vulnerable data collected by devices (cars, home devices etc.) connected to the Internet, AI and the rising “deepfake” threats, the potential reduced time of security breach by quantum computing, and so on.
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