In the past year, COVID-19 has had a larger impact on work habits and security environments than any other health emergency in memory. That combined with technological advances such as 5G has led to several trends we expect to see in this New Year. Here then are our top ten:
As the headlines showed, ransomware continued to be the weapon of choice in 2020, and extortionware is on the rise. While ransomware has become a tried and true method at this point, extortionware tactics are raising the stakes by threatening to expose sensitive information if the ransom is not paid.
Companies hold more data on us today than ever before, and many of us are left in the dark on just where our personal, often sensitive, information lives. The daily headlines on data breaches and the mainstream attention in the form of documentaries like Netflix’s “The Great Hack” and “The Social Dilemma” have made clear to the public: it’s time we all do a data detox.
Cybercriminals can take advantage of human weaknesses in one place and use them in other places where they can get financial or other gains. Email addresses, real names, real addresses, phone numbers, date of birth, etc., all are valuable information for cybercriminals. They can build their database with this personal information and use them in future attacks. This is why practicing good cybersecurity habits as users and as administrators is critical for all of us for all systems we use.
In spite of the fact that mobile apps live on IoT-enabled devices, collect user data, and continuously loop communication between Internet, cloud services and companies (even when not “in use”), there is a limited view that they are different entities altogether. We see this particularly when it comes to security – or lack-there-of – regarding security standards in place to continuously protect users from detrimental application hacks.
Most bot mitigation solutions rely on rules and risk scores, which use information from the past, even when paired with advanced machine learning or AI capabilities. Since bot operators are continually inventing new ways to evade detection, using historical data fails to detect and stop bots never seen before. As a result, retailers and e-commerce companies can’t keep up with the evolving nature of bot operators’ techniques, tools, and tactics. This is evidenced by the record volume of “Grinch” bots that we saw over the holidays.
Loss prevention and safety/risk employees can benefit from occupancy analytics, especially during the current health crisis. But beyond the pandemic, employees in operations, marketing, and merchandising can benefit considerably by learning all about the foot traffic in their stores.
Adoption of Push-to-Talk over Cellular and Wi-Fi networks is growing in the security market due to the wide area coverage, low cost, the bandwidth to accommodate voice and video communications, and integration with dispatching applications. This article reviews the different types of Push to Talk network deployments, how they work, the devices used, and the benefits to users. The types of Push-to-Talk networks include Push to Talk over Cellular (PoC), Push-to-Talk over Wi-Fi, and unified PoC, Wi-Fi and LMR radio networks.
According to Kroll, a Division of Duff & Phelps, ransomware was the most observed threat in 2020, accounting for over one-third of all cases as of September 1, 2020. Notably, Kroll found that Ryuk and Sodinokibi, perennially the most observed variants in Kroll’s cases, were joined by Maze as the top three ransomware variants so far in 2020. To get some insight on ransomware trends in 2021, as well as how cybercriminals execute this type of attack, we spoke to Wade Lance, Field CTO of Illusive Networks.
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