Last year, in terms of Cybersecurity Risks, I remembered APT attacks on organizations in the financial sector , high-profile data leaks and the search for hardware vulnerabilities by cybercriminals. While the management of the companies was looking for an adequate response to the threats, cybercriminals are embarking on a warpath with new tools and schemes.
Change Of Focus From Desktops To Devices & Equipments
Hackers are less interested in personal computers. Instead, they pay close attention to network devices, video cameras, IoT equipment, unmanned vehicles and others. According to Avast experts, attackers will more effectively protect spyware, significantly complicating their detection.
Artificial Intelligence Versus Human
Artificial intelligence technologies are actively used to protect against hacker attacks and prevent Cybersecurity Risks. The latter increasingly respond with “courtesy” and use AI for personal gain. According to the Avast Smart Home Report, in 2019, 44% of smart homes in Russia had at least one compromised equipment.
In 2020, vulnerable IoT devices will increasingly integrate into smart botnets like Swarm to organize cyber attacks. It is possible that they will be able to make decisions without the participation of criminals and will be able to autonomously generate a bypass of strategic protection based on an analysis of previously used tools to combat vulnerabilities.
In case of success, attackers can, for example, organize an air fleet of compromised drones for a physical attack on objects of interest.
Watch Out For Malicious Subscriptions
Experts warn that in 2020 fake applications will increasingly be found on the virtual shelves of official stores. To succeed, hackers use fraudulent schemes with paid subscriptions, fake applications and aggressive software for advertising campaigns. Examples are already known now – communities like checkra1n provide high-quality semi-closed jailbreak iOS based on exploit-programs checkm8.
At the same time, according to the Avast study, 57% of respondents could not distinguish even with careful consideration of the VK phishing page from the real one.
Critical Infrastructure Attacks
Analysts at Trend Micro and Group-IB predict a significant increase in the number of attacks on critical infrastructure. The most endangered are energy enterprises, life support systems, industrial complexes and official resources of state authorities. For this, various methods can be applied from attacks through malicious software to industrial espionage.
Money Is The Focus – Cybersecurity Risks
Oberon experts are sure that one of the trends this year will be the focus of cybercriminals on large companies. This is due to the continued vulnerability of the corporate sector to hacker attacks conducted through the supply chain. After hacking trusted suppliers, a targeted attack on the final victim is organized.
Attackers will be interested in two main goals – the theft of money and the theft of personal information of users. Targeted extortion will become more accentuated. Criminals will choose victims in more detail, giving preference to attacks on those companies that are willing to pay serious money for information recovery.
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A Simple Solutions For Effective Virus Control
For ordinary users, the main problem remains the protection of personal data on desktops and laptops. For this, it is necessary to use modern solutions that can effectively counter external threats. One of them is the antivirus program Malwarebytes from the developer of the same name.
It was originally created as a malware detection tool that other antivirus programs could not identify. However, over time, Malwarebytes learned to deal with trojans, rootkits, spyware, keyloggers, worms, and many other malicious programs.
The free version can serve as an addition to a standard anti-virus, as it runs as a scanner at the request of the user. It can also perform a full scan, perform intelligent heuristic analysis, quarantine suspicious files, and use manufacturer-specific utilities like Chameleon or Anti-Rootkit.
In the PRO version, in addition to the above functions, the following are available:
- Real-time threat detection and blocking
- task Manager;
- instant scan of RAM and startup;
- blocking malicious resources;
- protection of selected program settings with a password.
Despite the absence of the built-in firewall or password manager that is familiar to many competitors, Malwarebytes really skillfully identifies many threats that popular vendors cannot detect.
