It’s fun to predict what may happen over a year in security. The industry moves so fast and while some things do stay the course, it only takes one small catalyst to spark a new direction that nobody could have predicted.
There are many predictions already for 2016. Radware has our own, which will be released soon as part of our annual Global Application & Network Security Report. In the meantime, I wanted to share some other predictions made by other industry colleagues that piqued my personal interest.
So, in no particular order:
Almost everyone included something about IoT in their predictions, and justifiably so. IoT is a wide frontier and these connected devices make our lives easier. The team at Symantec has reminded us that the industrial IoT (sensors, controls, meters, etc.) that we use to gain better visibility and control of our critical infrastructure may also present a greater risk to that infrastructure. What I liked about this point is that the devices themselves are perhaps only part of the risk. Many of those devices integrate management and reporting systems for monitoring and control. Maybe they’re also linked to another event correlation platform, or they leverage APIs to give even more functionality or data. Is the risk simply the connected devices, or is the risk the other systems that ultimately may leak control of the devices? It’s interesting to think about.
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This is exactly what happened in the Ashley Madison breach, and it was a good example of how a data breach can destroy a business. While DDoS is a common technique for directly attacking someone, DDoS can be contained and mitigated. Data breaches, however, are irreversible and their impact can be too. Trend Micro suggests that the potentially devastating effect of data breaches might be an attractive technique now that we have seen their impact.
The success of the cyber insurance industry is extremely interesting because it reinforces the importance of preparedness. This extends beyond preparing for an attack in your network/infrastructure. It means that companies see cyber threats as so dangerous to their business, that they are purchasing insurance policies for financial protection if they are impacted. Jon wrote another more in depth article about the topic, which you can find here.
I share Andrew Borene’s opinion that spending on cybersecurity workforce and solutions will increase. We know that cyber security is an active industry but the demand for knowledgeable people continues to increase. Workforce spending will likely be both in the salary of hiring new employees with in-demand skills as well as training existing staff on security and security hardware.
Finally, Dan Lohrmann wrote a nice blog for Govtech.com that compiled the predictions of many companies (including these) which you can find here. 2016 will most certainly be an interesting year in cybersecurity. Be on the lookout for Radware’s 2016 predictions in our upcoming Global Application & Network Security Report!
Learn more about cyber-attack detection and trends in the 2016 Global Application and Network Security Report.
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