Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2018.  Read them in this 10th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Guy Caspi, CEO of Deep Instinct

The Cybercrime Epidemic Doubles as Threats Become More Sophisticated

2017 saw several cybersecurity disasters - think WannaCry, NotPetya, Wikileaks - that made organizations around the world concerned for the state of their infrastructure's security. These were not run of the mill, small breaches either, but rather viral leaks and full-blown campaign hacks exposing confidential customer information and government data. It was a year that elevated the topic of security to the very top across every industry. Below you will find Deep Instinct's top six predictions for 2018, and what I believe to be crucial when deciding how to successfully protect an organization's data.

1. Increase of cybercrime epidemic - The global cybercrime epidemic is expected to double in the next two years. Zero day threats are growing at an exponential rate while advanced persistent threats (APTs) are no longer the only concern of nation state organizations. As hackers continue to become more sophisticated, cybercrime as a service will grow, turning into one of the biggest challenges organizations will face in the coming decades.

2. Preferred attack vectors are changing - We expect to see a continued change in hackers' favorite attack vectors. The use of documents (Office, PDF and others) will not disappear but is expected to continue losing ground to other methods and attack surfaces such as archive files containing malicious content, browser extensions, social media campaigns and cross platform attacks.

3. Ransomware sophistication and formats - Despite surpassing most other forms of cybercrime in 2017, ransomware has yet to reach its peak. We expect to see ransomware campaigns increasing their level of sophistication and evasiveness, especially with regards to lateral movement and infection capabilities. We also predict more ransomware families will start using other methods than file or disk encryption for extorting money - like doxing, data-wiping and machine/system lockdowns. Companies will have to be overtly aware of their payment systems security, ensuring end-to-end encryption is being used to prevent criminals from obtaining credit card data from point of sale systems.

4. Fast growth in Non-Windows threat landscape - Threats to macOS, iOS and Linux based endpoints and servers will grow in number and complexity in 2018. We believe this will be the case both for state APTs and cyber-crime related campaigns.

5. Threat intelligence in real-time - Due to limited staff resources and expertise, more organizations will use threat intelligence services to better understand the risks of external threats, such as zero-day threats, APTs and exploits. However, in order to prevent attacks, these services will need to be provided in real-time to be truly beneficial.

6. Increase of the adoption of Artificial Intelligence - More and more cybersecurity related domains will migrate from the implementation of traditional security solutions to AI based solutions due to the improved accuracy and easier automation AI brings to the table.

The cybersecurity industry will continue to play catch up in 2018, as hackers become more sophisticated and the number of attacks increase against businesses, individuals and organizations. Companies will have to get smart about the solutions they implement to ensure their infrastructure is secure, and have a consistent dialogue among executives to keep up with the ever-changing landscape.

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About the Author

 

Mr. Caspi is a seasoned CEO and leading global expert in cybersecurity, big data analytics and data science. A pioneer technologist by the world economic forum in Davos.

Mr. Caspi has 20 years of extensive experience in implementing these domains in governmental, financial, telecom and insurance institutions. He has spearheaded companies in senior positions through entire life cycles; from start up, accelerate growth and up to IPO in Nasdaq.

Mr. Caspi is a serial entrepreneur with in depth knowledge in technology combined with a strong Go2Market planning, financial and business understanding.