The Latest Computer and Cybersecurity Threats Unveiled by Flosum Experts

Any individual technology users to the biggest corporations out there are vulnerable to cyber-attacks lately. The severity and risks of cyber-attacks have also mainly grown in the past few years. In the last couple of decades, mankind had witnessed many horrific cybersecurity threats, including massive breaches of data, microchip flaws, crypto-jacking, and a lot more.

With the advancement of the internet and digital media, cyber attackers are also becoming smarter day by day. They target individuals and firms which tend to pay less attention to cybersecurity. With automated tools to find an entry, they spread their net to cover anything from a just-launched blog to a highly established networking of a banking system, to name a few, where they can access sensitive information.

2020 cybersecurity threats

As we can see, the methodology of cyberattacks is changing day by day. The year 2020 also comes with a new range of cybersecurity threats, which technology users should be aware of. The experts broadly categorize the latest cybersecurity threats under three Ds:

1. Disruption: Depending on a fragile and insecure internet connection will increase the risk multifold. Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such opportunities to try out their ransomware and hijack through the Internet of Things.
2. Distortion: This is the method of spreading misinformation using automated bots and tools, which will further compromise your information integrity.
3. Deterioration: The advancement of smart technologies also creates conflicting demands in light of national security, which may now impact any business’s ability and autonomy in controlling information.

Cybersecurity is all about being aware and staying ahead of all these threats than managing them after the occurrence. Further, we discuss how to be prepared for the latest cybersecurity threats of 2020.

Cloud Vulnerability

The combined KPMG and Oracle 2019 Cloud Threat Report unravels that the cloud vulnerability is proving to be one of the gravest cybersecurity challenges to organizations lately. Enterprises are increasingly leveraging cloud applications’ advantages, which are much cheaper, functional, and flexible. Many organizations store their sensitive customer data and also run their business operations on the cloud. So, the increasing adoption of cloud services has created an increasing challenge regarding the same. A report by Forbes predicts the possibility as about 83% of global enterprise workload may be moved on to the cloud by the end of 2020. These organizations may also be the most tempting targets of hackers. Any misconfigurations, security loopholes, and insecure interfaces and APIs on the cloud may further end up in severe data breach, hijacking accounts, DDoS attacks to grave insider threats on such systems. The giants like Amazon and Google, who are using cloud data servers, invest a considerable amount in terms of cloud security. However, the countermeasures for deep cybersecurity intrusions as Operation Cloud Hopper are yet to come.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning related to cyber threats

As points out, the latest technological advancement like AI and ML have now disrupted almost all industries. Owing to these innovative technologies’ instant ability to create a positive impact on business operations, marketing, sales, security, manufacturing, supply chain, banking, and finance industries are mainly incorporating AI into their mainstream lately.

While AI is proving out to be a boon for modern-day businesses on the one hand, on the other, it is also the favorite workspace for cybercriminals. Some of the AI capabilities third-party applications now use to counter the cyber-attacks can be used by the hackers to try out their most sophisticated cyberattacks and malicious software. Lately, AIF or AI fuzzing and ML (machine learning) poisoning are the biggest cybersecurity threats.

1. AI Fuzzing: AI fuzzing is a combination of artificial intelligence with fuzzing techniques to identify system vulnerabilities and intrude. Using the AI fuzzing positively can help the organizations identify and fix the system’s vulnerabilities. On the other hand, cybercriminals will also use this to accelerate and automate their zero-day attacks.
2. Machine Learning poisoning: The hackers target machine learning models to inject their instructions into it. The typical machine learning system model is to use the crowd-sourced data or the same taken from social media and other sources. The hackers exploit such user-generated information as satisfaction rates, purchase histories, web traffic info, etc. Cybercriminals trying to engage in MI poisoning may also use malicious codes to include Trojans to poison and compromise the system.

Social Engineering / Phishing attacks

We had seen many new phishing attacks over the last couple of years, targeting all types of users. As per a study, about one in every 100 mails can be a phishing attack. Social Engineering attacks are kinds of attacks in which the cybercriminals initiate a phishing mail, website, or text to lure a victim into sharing their sensitive information like login credentials or passwords for their credit cards. Among other cyberattacks we discuss, phishing emails are the gravest as anyone may share legitimate credentials without knowing the trap behind and fall prey to the same. As time pass by, more cyber attackers use various phishing strategies for cheap and easy access to the prey. It is also low-risk and highly rewarding for the attackers.

Ransomware

Ransomware attacks had been declining over the last couple of years, but it seems that businesses are still primarily targeted by these types of attacks lately. In this mode of cyberattacks, the attackers try to infect the victim’s systems by using a malware piece to encrypt their data. Once done this, the attacker requests the victim to pay a ransom or destroy their data forever.

Even though less than the previous year in general users, ransomware is still there in plenty in 2020, too, targeting businesses. There are many strategies you can adopt to deal with ransomware threats. At the first point, always use very perimeter security like firewalls, which can scrutinize and prevent malware entry to your systems. Next, the workstations can also have antivirus programs installed to scan each mail attachments and other shared documents for malware encryptions.

Even with all the precautions in place, always plan for business continuity and disaster recovery to protect your data and technological resources against any loss. With a proper backup and recovery practice in place, you can quickly restore the data when needed. Along with these, always be aware of and take precautionary measures against the possibility of internal cybersecurity threats too.

Author Bio:

Kelly Wilson is an experienced and skilled Business Consultant and Financial advisor in the USA.  She helps clients both personal and professional in long-term wealth building plans. During her spare time, she loves to write on FLOSUM. She loves to share her knowledge and Expert tips with her readers.