As the world getting more connected with advent of digital technologies
Maturity and inherent connectedness of people and devices and whole
lot of communication that goes on within an outside the organizations.
Now cybercriminals are also far ahead in their tactics and attacking
power is increasing at an astonishing speed. These cyber criminals
are getting access to significant funding which is empowering them
to carry out malicious cyber attack gaining Maturity.
If we study the nature of cyber-attacks gaining Maturity in recent
years we will notice that cyber criminals are more bold then before
and more patient, sophisticated in their approach.
Constantly they are looking for vulnerabilities in the whole operating
environment of any organization they are willing to target and this
include people and processes.
The question comes to mind as to what is making the cyber criminals
more bold and attacks gaining Maturity.
Roadblocks in defending organization from cyber threat
Research from different domains says that lack of agility in defending
against cyber crime are making cybercriminals bold. There are known
vulnerabilities in cyber defence system in organizations and overlooking
them with timely mitigation, clearly present with an immense danger.
Also organization who have no real time insights on cyber risks this
danger of cyber threat becomes more accurate. Budget is another
road block as cyber security is concerned. In boardroom meetings for
smaller organisation importance of increasing budget still not on priority
level.
Training of cyber security specialist remains under poor condition and
their demand grows to conquer challenges and a culture of cyber security
still needs to be incorporated in core business domains.
For more information: https://smeventure.com/role-of-technology-to-scale-up-business-revenue-of-msmes/
2023 what can we expect from trends in cyber attack
The growing online shopping fobia is helping cyber criminals become
more bold as they go on a spree to create ‘DEEP FAKES’. These DEEP
FAKES are as authentic unless one knows how to verify them. This will
happen as more digital DNA Data gets online exposure.
Deep Fake can be described as human imitation being created with
the aid of AI and other advance digital technologies.
IoT technologies and smart home device still remains one of the
vulnerable are for exploitation by cyber criminals.
Smart devices that include smart phones, wearable devices and
remotes controllers which have embedded sensors come under
attack from hackers..i.e. Cybercrime shifting towards smart devices
other then laptops, data centre or cloud.
The QR code that we all use to scan while making payments, the digital
business card is another area where cyber criminals can get hands on .
Further as we dig deep we find, downloading software and files from the
internet can expose a device to a malware infection. Malware, such as
viruses, worms, and spyware, is software that has been written and distributed
with malicious intent.
This also makes us think if any device that runs software can be exposed to
vulnerabilities that are regularly discovered in all software. Cybercriminals are
expert to quickly to exploit them. They use the weaknesses in software to
attack computers and networks.
Maturity in cybercrime gains prominence
In the past 2 years cyber-attack on small and medium organization has
grown exponentially making the business of cybercrime thrive and
cybercriminals getting bold.
Between 2020-2021, cyber attacks on small companies surged by more
than 150%, according to Risk Recon, a MasterCard company.
The basic reason is cyber criminals are aware that small organizations
are not upto a superior cyber hygiene which makes them vulnerable
and easier to target.
In 2023 this might grow double as growing economic uncertainty when
it comes to budgeting cyber security takes back seat and small companies
cut cost on cyber budgets and refrain form taking any insurance cover..
On the event of any breach organizations wont report at times fearing bad
name to brand and further place pressure on businesses on the financial side .
During pandemic 1.5 billion attack on smart devices happened. Many of them
went unreported giving cyber criminals and hackers more space to create such
attack again. This made the attack surface grow over time and cyber criminals
bolder.
Ransomeware
As per Blackfrog report Ransomware attack for the first month of 2023
saw 33 publicly disclosed ransomware attacks, the highest number of
attacks recorded in January 2023.
As we talk about Ransomware, the nature of attack has always evolved and
in 2023 we will see more evolved Ransomware attacks. The extortions via
Ransomware have been refined and volume also went upward in recent years.
Recent geopolitical situation and on-going war between Russia and Ukraine
helping improve professional cyber criminals to take opportunity of such situation,
stricter government regulation to counter cyber threat making hackers more
desperate in their attempts.
Do watch: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mxmhEv0xPgM
“We expect ransomware to continue its assault on businesses in 2023,”
says Darren Williams, CEO and founder at BlackFog. “Specifically, we
will see a huge shift to data deletion in order to leverage the value of
extortion.” (quote Security week)
RaaS ( ransomware-as-a-service) emerged and turned profitable for
cybercrime and criminals as they find increased profits which reduces
personal exposure. This is by developing the malware and then leasing
its use to third- party affiliates for a fee or percentage of returns. This
has been a huge success and making cybercrime and criminals get
matured and bold.