Page 33 - Cyber Warnings

Look into my Crystal Ball; let's see what 2017 has in store.

by Jonathan Stock, Cyber Security Recruitment Consultant, IntaPeople.

The Christmas hangovers are starting to clear, every advert on TV seems to tell me that I need
to begin the 2017 diet (maybe it’s a sign!) and Meryl Streep turned into Tyson, firing punches at
Mr Trump in her Golden Globe speech.

Who knows if he’s going to respond, or if he’s dazed and confused in ‘La La Land’, but one thing
is for sure, 2017 is going to be a memorable year for many reasons.

2016 was the year of the high profile hack; LinkedIn, Yahoo, Oracle and DropBox were some of
the major players to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

So what does 2017 have in store for us? Are we going to see an increase in cyberattacks?

Are attacks going to change strategy and become more sophisticated? Are our defences going
to get stronger?

Or are we going to go back to the dark ages and use pen and paper for all of our work so that
we can reduce cybersecurity?

Experts within the industry have given predictions of what we can expect in 2017, I wonder if
any of these will become true or if we’re going to witness another Leicester City FC / Brexit /
Trump shock to stun us all.

What will happen with the strategy of hackers? As mentioned above, 2016 was the year of the
large organisations being targeted.

They were high profile, they had a massive gain for each hacking group and it took a long time
for companies to recover both financially and with their reputation.

2017, might find hackers taking the easier route; targeting small and medium sized businesses.

Yes the reward financially might be less for them per organisation, but it’s quicker and they can
use their power to target several at once.

What will hackers do with the data they collect from breaches? Previously, it’s been a case of
theft, keeping it for themselves either to hack again, or using them as ransomware.

This year, we might see the rise of data manipulation.

Rather than theft, which is a quick and straightforward attack, hackers may start changing the
data on internal systems, which in turn could lead to long term reputational damage for the
company.

33 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – May 2017 Edition
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