What Will Cause Sleepless Nights For Cybersecurity Pros This Year?

The high-profile data breaches that dominated the news in 2015 were a wake up call to public- and private-sector cyber pros that no organization is immune from cyber attack, and that the best solution is to be ready. To help you prepare for the threats you’re likely to encounter as the year goes on, Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs has compiled a list of the top five trends predicted to drive the 2016 cybersecurity environment.

1. Malware Disguised As Benign Code

To evade detection by security sandboxes, cyber criminals are expected to improve their skills designing malware that disguises malicious programs as benign code. Called two-faced malware, it behaves “safely” while under observation in the sandbox; then initiates its malicious actions when deemed safe and released into the network. Worse yet, when the malware is flagged as safe by the sandbox and reported to threat intelligence, it becomes undetectable in future attacks. Sandboxes with advanced scanning and behavioral analysis capabilities are a must to counter these rising threats.

2. Malware Erases Its Tracks

While two-faced malware attacks in disguise, ghostware stays hidden altogether while it breaches networks, steals data and erases all signs of compromise. Organizations victimized by ghostware may never know there was an attack. Internal Segmentation Firewalls (ISFWs) that sit between the network perimeter and critical business assets are designed to protect data from threats that manage to infiltrate the internal network.  

3. Headless Worms Attack Mobile Devices

Mobile and connected devices like smartphones and tablets are contributing to the expansion of cyber attack surfaces, substantially increasing risk for organizations without strong protocols to secure these devices. Cyber criminals view this as an opportunity and will step up their attacks with headless worms that proliferate through mobile devices to target the networks they connect with.

4. Malware Jailbreaks the Cloud

Cloud technology has become more secure. Nonetheless, cyber criminals see this as a challenge and are predicted to accelerate attacks with malware that “jailbreaks” the cloud and virtual environments. In 2015, the historic Venom virus reared its ugly head again to to break out of virtual machine hypervisors and attack underlying operating systems. It’s only a matter of time before cyber criminals adapt these tactics to target data managed in the cloud.

5. Malware Connects Via the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has given rise to millions of connected and "headless" devices that are difficult to control, but have opened up countless network access points. As the IoT continues to shape our world, malware authors will increasingly focus their attacks on devices to gain access to the myriad, larger systems they access. You should also be prepared to see headless devices used as gateways for machine-to-machine attacks including DDoS (distributed denial of service).

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Next Steps

Anticipating the biggest challenges to cybersecurity in 2016 is the first step to addressing them. The next is planning and deploying the appropriate cybersecurity strategies and protocols.

Resilient Intelligent Networks works with best-in-class providers of advanced cybersecurity solutions and technologies, including Fortinet. Consider calling on our team of experts to guide you through the process.

Do you need to validate the current state of your Network Security effectiveness, better understand your employee productivity/application usage, and monitor your true Network Performance requirements? Contact Resilient for a Free Cyber Threat Assessment!