With the interest on crytpos gaining momentum by the day, cyber security experts warn that hackers might come out with well-funded attacks to tap the opportunity.
Palo Alto Networks, a US-based cyber security solutions provider, has said that cryptocurrency will fuel the rise and evolution of the ransomware industry.
Coming out with a list of predictions for the New Year in the cyber security space, it said that larger attacks could happen on important infrastructure.
“Because of its decentralised character, it will be difficult for regulators to track down the perpetrators. Businesses must concentrate on enhancing their cyber security posture and determining their level of preparedness for an attack,” it said.
Collaboration between cybersecurity providers, cloud providers, and telecommunications providers will help disrupt successful attacks and impose real costs on attackers, it felt.
In 2021, organisations continued to navigate the impact of the global pandemic, which saw rising levels of innovation and digital transformation.
“As a result, cyber attackers also grew in sophistication. The impact of ransomware attacks also reached an unprecedented scale, posing a threat to thousands of businesses around the world and threatening critical infrastructure,” it said.
As we approach 2022, it’s important that organisations remain cognizant of emerging trends.
“As physical and digital lines blur, who or what we trust will impact our security even more,” it contended.
“Increased interactions with smart, intuitive devices with sensory triggers will create reams of digital data that will double up in existing physical spaces,” it pointed out.
“Given this hyper-connectedness of networks, organisations need to draw up a strategic approach that will provide complete visibility into the security infrastructure,” it said.
“A ‘Zero Trust’ (trust no one) architecture combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities can enable enterprises to profile, correlate and contextualise and apply threat prevention tools to each connected device, thus eliminating implicit trust and validating every stage of digital interaction,” it said.
It cautioned that the attackers will set their eyes on countries’ critical digital infrastructure. Cyber attacks on essential infrastructure, with confidential and lucrative data, worldwide, are on rise.
“These attacks have revealed that the implementation of cyber security protocols is significantly slower than the rate of digitalisation across countries,” it observed.
Borderless solutions
It called for borderless solutions in order to attend to the needs of a borderless workforce.
“With remote work gaining long-term acceptance and homes evolving into workplaces, cyber criminals have switched their focus from targeting corporate offices to attacking individuals,” it pointed out.
To contend with this new reality, enterprises will have to evolve beyond their corporate networks, deploy remote work solutions and bring unified security policy management to remote employees.
With the rise of open-banking and hyper growth of fintech, poor programming or security misconfigurations at the application interface levels (API) could provide cyber criminals with greater opportunities to carry out identity theft, fraud, and unauthorised data collection.
“Special focus would have to be given to groups like the elderly, who may be more susceptible to fraud as new users of digital banking platforms,” it said.
