11 crystal ball cyber predictions for the year ahead

So, crystal ball of 2022… What fate shall next year bestow us cyber mortals? 1. Say ‘pass’ to passwords According to Greg Day, VP & CSO, EMEA at Palo Alto Networks, the number of credentials per individual user is “exploding”. Poorly managed and weak passwords are a prime target for hackers, and Day predicts that more organisations will respond by going password-free in 2022.2. Supply chains in the crosshairsMalicious actors will look to exacerbate global supply chain disruption next year. Bharat Mistry, technical director at Trend Micro, says in 2022 attackers will strong-arm big-name victims into paying large sums via a fourfold extortion technique: holding the victim’s critical data for ransom; threatening to leak the data and publicise the breach; threatening to go after the victim’s customers; attacking the victim’s supply chain or vendors.3. More SME attacksTrend Micro’s Mistry says small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will become a hot target. Internet crooks will be hoping to encounter fewer security defences and less competition from other cybercriminals. Generally, SMEs have less resources to invest in cybersecurity, Mistry says.4. Ransomware reigns According to Simon Walsh, senior engineer at Trend Micro (and, indeed, every expert worth one’s salt), ransomware will remain rife in 2022. “With such a lucrative business model and high success rate, next year will continue to see all roads lead to ransomware. Numbers will grow and attack methods will diversify and intensify to take advantage of recent changes in enterprise attack surfaces, such as less secure home working environments and nascent cloud infrastructure.”5. Towards a software defined world According to Theresa Lanowitz, head of evangelism at AT&T Cybersecurity, 2022 will realise the transition from a hybrid to a software-defined world.“The hybrid workforce is forcing a software-defined (SD) world. We’re already living in an SD world with more companies going serverless, the growth of apps, and the reliance on software,” she says.Lanowit says applications of the future will need to be more compact, purpose-built and built with security in mind upfront.6. Workplace cyber hygiene transfers to the homeMore employees are bringing their cyber skills and learnings into their home environment, says Lanowitz. “By leading with a security-first mindset, if you have proper security and good cyber hygiene at work, you can use those habits in your home life as well.”7. Government intervention will increaseDavid Carroll, MD of Nominet Cyber, says governments around the world will take a more active role in cyber defence during 2022. “Economic losses are mounting, supply chain attacks have compromised entire nations, and ransomware now poses a significant threat to national security. “With cyber now presenting a risk to lives as well as to economies, we are reaching a tipping point where governments will increasingly step in to correct any perceived market failures.” 8. Cyber teams will strive to match criminals’ creativity It’s one prediction that never changes, but 2022 will see cyber criminals finding new and alternative ways to cause disruption. Amanda Finch, CEO of The Chartered Institute for Information Security (CIISec), says: “The more security teams can mimic some of criminals’ activity, and learn from one another constantly, the more prepared they will be. “Just as with the pandemic, while you can’t always eliminate all of the risks, investing in research and education is always the best place to start.” 9. Hyper-realistic scams will soarAccording to Armen Najarian, chief identity officer at Outseer, phishing scams will become lifelike in 2022. Scammers will scour social media to mimic language used by the person they intend to impersonate, find their location, time zone and which employees report to them. To fend off fraudsters, businesses must deliver more robust fraud education in 2022.10. Nation-state attackers will target developersWhile cyberattack methods like ransomware are easy for threat actors to get their hands on, attacking the software supply chain requires a sophisticated set of skills typically limited to elite nation-state attackers. Kevin Bocek, VP security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi, says in 2022 there will be a wider range of nation-state threat groups targeting software developers. 11. And there will be a silver lining….This year saw some of the biggest supply chain attacks to date, but there could be a silver lining for 2022, says CIISec’s Finch.“Just as the pandemic made many people aware of the risks of airborne diseases and the need for masks, quarantines and vaccinations, so 2021’s headline attacks have given businesses a vivid lesson in the impact of an attack on a single weak link.“In turn, this should make organisations more willing to invest in the right technology, training, people, and processes to stop it from happening to them.”

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11 crystal ball cyber predictions for the year ahead

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11 crystal ball cyber predictions for the year ahead

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