The 5 hottest cybersecurity trends in 2022

The cybersecurity landscape is always changing but accelerated migration to the cloud and remote work have come with even more dangers. So, for the cybersecurity awareness month, we thought we should highlight the current cybersecurity trends to help you gauge which threats are relevant to your business and come up with preventative and corrective plans.

Ransomware

Ransomware has existed for as long as we can remember and will only continue to grow. “These attacks have grown exponentially and will continue to rise – largely due to the pandemic, as we’ve seen the massive amount of online growth and increased digital environments. The shift to work-at-home left organisations scrambling to strengthen their cybersecurity posture. Now, organisations have to deal with their employee's multitasking both professionally and personally from multiple devices in an environment that may or may not be secure,” said Shira Rubinoff who is a cybersecurity executive, author, and consultant.

Rubinoff says the key is to create awareness for employees on top of implementing security solutions.

She also believes that Zero Trust will be key in combating ransomware even as gangs evolve their methods from encrypting data for ransomware to stealing data and threatening to leak it.

Crypto-mining/crypto jacking

The crypto world continues to be a lucrative world and hence the growing popularity of crypto mining attacks. And unlike ransomware where you can tell you have been breached after attackers demand a ransom, crypto-jacking can go undetected for a long time.

The biggest consequences from these attacks are lost performance as your computer resources are utilised by hackers to mine crypto and higher electricity bill. However, experts warn that organisations shouldn’t ignore it as it’s a backdoor to your organisation that can be leveraged to perform more damaging attacks.

Deepfakes

Up to this point deep fake has been mainly used for entertainment purposes. However, it has now come out as an emerging security risk. Deepfake technology leverages on AI to create simulated realities. In cybersecurity that could be used to create a situation where you imagine you are in a zoom call with your CEO but in reality, it’s an artificially generated person. A number of people have been tricked into transferring large sums of money this way.

"Based on the hacker chatter that we track on the dark web, we’ve seen traffic around deepfake attacks increase by 43% since 2019,” says Alon Arvatz, senior director of product management at IntSights.

Supply Chain Attacks

Attacks on businesses through their supply chain have always existed but the 2020 attack on SolarWinds showed just how massive it can be. And unfortunately, a lot of businesses lack processes to properly manage their supply chain putting them at a high risk of getting compromised.

Even with the best in-house security solutions, you are still at risk of getting breached if you lack a clear view of your third parties, contractors, partners, MSPs, and cloud providers, and how they expose your business to attacks.

Attacks against IoT and OT

Everyday smart devices continue to be churned out and unfortunately, their developers are not putting a lot of emphasis on their security. As a result, they have become possible entry points for attackers into your system.

And with the pandemic forcing people to work remotely, it’s now even harder for security teams to manage these devices.

Expect to hear incidences such as hackers shutting down services in a business by targeting industrial sensors. Consumers of smarthome technologies could also be targets resulting in situation where you are locked out of your home by your smart lock.