What Types of Cybersecurity Threats are we Facing Today?
The cybersecurity threat landscape continues to feature cyberattackers exploiting vulnerabilities resulting from the global implications of the pandemic.1
Supply chain cyberattacks. Supply chain cyberattackers continue to exploit vulnerabilities in organizations that lack monitoring and use those weaknesses to perform cyberattacks such as data breaches and malware infections. It is predicted that supply chain attacks will become more common, prompting governments to establish regulations for protecting networks and addressing cyberattacks.
Fake news. Misinformation continues to grow, with fake news campaigns continuing to be leveraged to execute phishing attacks and scams. Additionally, political misinformation campaigns on social media continue, with some of these posts leading to malicious election-related domains.
Cyber ‘cold war’. Cyberattackers interested in destabilizing western governments are expected to expand their capabilities to carry out more sophisticated and widespread cyberattacks.
Data breaches. The scale of data breaches is expected to increase, creating more expense for organizations and governments, and more headaches for individuals. Data breaches in 2021 and 2022 saw massive ransom payouts, incentivizing cyberattackers to breach more data in 2023.
Mobile malware. With so many employees accessing their work resources remotely and on their mobile devices, it is no surprise that this method of cyberattack is on the rise. Employees who download mobile applications and utilize mobile wallets and mobile payment platforms may be vulnerable to threats from malicious actors.
Cryptojacking. Cryptojacking, or illicit cryptocurrency mining, is stealing a victim’s computer processing power (and electricity) to produce revenue that can be used to support their criminal activities. It is predicted that there will be a rise in cyberattacks such as these as the cryptocurrency landscape changes and evolves.
Mircroservices. Microservices are an architectural design for building a distributed application using containers. It is named microservices because each function of the application operates as an independent service, allowing for each service to scale or update without disrupting other services in the application. Due to their popularity and vulnerability, cyberattackers continue to be looking to conduct large-scale attacks on microservice architecture.
Deepfakes. Cyberattackers may use fake video or audio to impersonate and/or manipulate to gain permissions to access sensitive data, for fraud, or even for espionage.
Ransomware. Ransomware attacks continue to grow. Cyberattackers are expected to target larger companies who can afford to pay larger ransoms, and to use penetration tools to customize attacks in real time and to live and work within victim networks. Data exfiltration and extortion attacks are expected, as a result.
1 Check Point Software Technologies LTD, 2021, “Deepfakes, Cryptocurrency and Mobile Wallets: Cybercriminals Find New Opportunities in 2022”