And now, a compendium of cyber security predictions for 2017

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Cyber security predictions are already coming in hard and fast for 2017. This seems to happen earlier and earlier each year. We thought we’d bring you the best of the best cyber security predictions for 2017.

BeyondTrust has put together a top 10 list of predictions for 2017, you can find the full list here. BeyondTrust’s cyber security predictions include:

  • The first nation-state cyber-attack will be conducted and acknowledged as an act of war.
  • The concept of passwords and password re-use will take front and center stage in home and business awareness.
  • The Internet of Things (IoT) –everything from toy drones to routers – will come under government cyber security scrutiny and require manufacturers to tighten security.
  • Compliance concerns drive growth in the endpoint and device market.

Check Point says data breaches are becoming more prevalent and attack trends show no evidence of slowing down… these breaches targeting high-value data – social security numbers, protected health information, credit and debit card numbers, phishing, subcontractor/third party breaches, even email, password and other user access information.

Check Point’s Cyber Security Predictions for 2017 include threats and trends across Mobile, IIoT, Critical Infrastructure, Threat Protection and Cloud.

Fortinet says accountability will take the stage in 2017. The trends they are following include:

  • The digital footprint of both businesses and individuals has expanded dramatically, increasing the potential attack surface.
  • Everything is a target and anything can be a weapon
  • Threats are becoming intelligent, can operate autonomously, and are increasingly difficult to detect
  • There are two threat trends: automated attacks against groups of smaller targets and customized attacks against larger targets
  • In addition, these two trends are increasingly being blended together, with automated attacks being used as a first phase, and targeted attacks as a second. This attacks strategy was used in the BEC scam broken up by INTERPOL, which cost the digital economy over $61M USD.
  • In addition to new threats, old threats keep returning, but enhanced with new technologies

Forcepoint recently released a comprehensive 2017 Cyber security Predictions Report (download here).  The report highlights include:

Voice-First Artificial Intelligence (AI) Platforms and Command Sharing – “A New Level of Human and Technology Convergence”: The rise of voice-activated AI to access Web, data and apps will open up creative new attack vectors and data privacy concerns.

Rise of the Corporate-Incentivized Insider Threat – “Corporate Abuse of PII Expands”: A new corporate-incentivized insider threat may clash with customer data, corporate profit and other performance goals, forcing businesses to re-evaluate their corporate environments and growth strategies.

The Cloud as an Expanding Attack Vector – “The Challenge to Securing Cloud Infrastructure”: Organizations migrating their already vulnerable environments to the cloud will find limited security benefits without proper preparation as the underlying foundation that runs virtual machines may be increasingly come under attack.

Compliance & Data Protection Convergence – “Data Protection Harmonization Becomes Law”: 2017 will be the final full year before the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a legal requirement. GDPR demands may drive business costs higher as new data protection controls are applied and multiple stakeholders grapple with the who, when and how of data accessibility requirements.

More 2017 cyber security predictions from Kaspersky (here) and Forrester (here).

This article was first published on CyberSec.Buzz.

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