Page 38 - Cyber Warnings

Stay Vigilant, We re in for a Wild Ride

2017 Security Predictions
By: Scott Millis, CTO, Cyber adAPT

2016 brought about more cyberattacks than we thought possible, especially involving
ransomware, and we definitely won’t see that trend breaking stride in 2017. In February of this
year, an IRS hack led to an estimated 700,000 stolen social security numbers and other
sensitive information. This ruthless attack severely increased the risk of identity theft for all
compromised victims.

By next year, we expect every single adult in the US will know a blood relative that has had
their identity stolen – the Internal Revenue Service reported that 2.7 million people had their
identities stolen in 2014 and according to TransUnion, 19 people fall victim to identity theft every
minute.

Here’s a quick tip: When you elect to use credit cards, stick to the ‘chip and pin’ cards – no
swiping. Online, use your credit card issuers ‘one-time-numbers’ for purchases. Get a shredder
and use it. Think of it as ‘safe recycling’.

Now I’m no fortune teller, but there are a few predictions I can make for the coming year – that I
think most of us in the security industry can agree on:

• Ransomware will spin out of control – Symantec’s Security Response group has seen
an average of more than 4,000 ransomware attacks per day since Jan 1, 2016, a 300-
percent increase in the average 1,000 attacks per day in 2015 the company highlighted
in its 2016 Internet Security Threat Report.
o TIP: The best current defense against loss from this attack is to make backups of
all your data in a separate place. Regularly and often.

• Dwell time for breached networks (up to 2 years in some extreme cases) will see zero
significant improvement.
o Ponemon Institute found that when a breach was identified within 100 days,
average costs were $5.83 million per breach. However, if a breach went
undetected for more than 100 days, costs rose nearly 40%.

• Mobile will continue to rise as a key point of entry – with at least one if not more major
enterprise breaches will be attributed to mobile devices. A Ponemon Institute report
found that for an enterprise, the economic risk of mobile data breaches can be as high
as $26.4 million and 67% of the organizations surveyed reported having had a data
breach as a result of employees using their mobile devices to access the company’s
sensitive and confidential information.
38 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine November 2016 Edition
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