TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
What will the cyber threat space hold in 2017?
“ If only I knew then, what I know now!” seems to be the mantra of far too many organisations in the ever-evolving cyber security landscape. In fact, in our experience, we have noticed that today, many companies seem to be spending approximately 80 % of their security budgets trying to prevent security breaches, while only 20 % is being used to predict, detect and respond to attacks.
manipulate evidence and indicators – making it ever harder to spot and correctly identify them.
A rise in vigilante hackers
It has been predicted that cyber criminals will look to hack and dump data, which is allegedly done for the‘ greater good’. This can mean businesses and reputations are compromise if targeted.
The reality, however, is that those organisations who have suffered a security breach, understand that this‘ reactive’ approach to cyber security is no longer effective, given pace at which the cyber threat landscape is evolving.
Looking back at the cyber threats predicted for 2016, which included seeing more players entering the world of cyber-crime, signifi cant evolution in cyberespionage tradecraft and a dramatic change in how APTs are structured and operated, unfortunately most of these did surface, and further to this, 2016 has be declared‘ the year of ransomware’. In fact, according to our research on ransomware, 20 % of all businesses across the world have experienced a ransomware attack in the last 12 months.
In South Africa, this fi gure sits at 19 %, which shows just how many companies are becoming victims and are paying to get their data back. Turning our attention to 2017, and the below predicted threats, it will likely be a diffi cult year, especially for organisations that only have security solution as protection. The main theme of 2017 is the growing ability of attackers to customise, hide, disguise or
12 LIFE TODAY MAGAZINE Issue 2, No. 003 / 17 / March 2017