Page 39 - Cyber Defense eMagazine Annual RSA Edition for 2024

Rise of the Cyber Supervillain

By Guy Rosefelt, Chief Product Officer, Sangfor Technologies

In my Cyber HotSeat Interview with Gary Miliefsky, I made a prediction about the rise of the Cyber
Supervillain. This is an uber-hacker with the ability to take the entire world hostage, not company by
company or country by country, but in its entirety. How could that be possible? By connecting everything,
everywhere together.
Globalization of companies, systems, and data has been ongoing for over 30 years since the
st
commercialization of the internet. In the 21 century, we see a major shift from on-premises infrastructure
to cloud computing, whether it be SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, or any other acronym. Thus, everything starts to
become connected directly or indirectly.

Many years ago, I wrote about a potential internet apocalypse, where connectivity and services for entire
countries or continents would be rendered inoperable. I suggested then that attackers could weaponize
the 5G Smart Cities being developed at that time by infecting the multitude of IoT devices deployed
(cameras, smart meters for utilities and parking, etc.) and turning the cities into giant DDoS cannons that
could attack entire countries. The firepower of the controlled cities could still be increased a thousandfold
if a percentage of Android phones used by the population were also compromised.

You are thinking to yourself, “But Guy, how would that even be possible?! There is little evidence to
suggest that Android phones could be infected and used on a large scale!”

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