While the recent advancements in the technological sector globally has without a doubt digitally enhanced our lives, we can not ignore the fact that it also has put us in a compromising situation because technology advances comes with its own risks. If something commendable can be created using technology, the same can be turned to dust using better technology. Some high profile cyber attacks on the world’s most successful companies such as Uber, Deloitte, Equifax and many more that went under the radar were there for the world to witness in 2017.
The topic of cybersecurity is of immense importance today as we are at the zenith of technological advancements and the road ahead seems dark because no one knows what the true potential of technology has in store for us in the future. But we can make our own predictions as to where the cyber sphere is headed and here are my top predictions of trends in cybersecurity for 2018 and the threats that’ll come with it-
- Cryptocurrencies & Blockchain systems
While the craze for cryptographic technology used for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is still fresh, no one knows if it can be hacked or not as the technology used in creating blockchain systems is still is in its infancy. And as it has gone mainstream recently, we can expect increase in attacks, including zero days vulnerability exploitation, denial of service, as well as, majority related attacks against smaller blockchain systems as the technology gathers more attention worldwide.
- Artificial Intelligence
AI was the hot topic in 2017 and many large corporations such as Facebook, google and more have marched confidently into the AI space. Artificial Intelligence is a double edged sword, as AI is a kind of technology which has a mind of its own. AI, today is used by approximately 87% of US cybersecurity officials and out of them 91% of security professionals are concerned that hackers will use AI to launch even more sophisticated cyber-attacks in the coming future.
- Multi-factor authentication
According to a report by Verizon – ‘In 2017, 63% of data breaches involved taking advantage of weak or default passwords’. This was possible only because of people and corporations using single-factor authentication which relies solely on something that you know. Double-factor or multiple-factor authentication will surely come in play for providing an increased level of security in 2018. The good news is many websites and platforms have already started using the tech of double-factor authentication to secure and protect the data of their users.
The technological sector is a fast moving one, these trends in cybersecurity for 2018 will surely come into play sooner than we think. And like with many other advances made before in the tech space, new technologies will bring with them a new legion of threats and malware that we’ll have to be careful with. A proactive approach and a deep understanding of the latest technologies will be required to tackle this glaring problem.