The biggest cybersecurity threats of 2016
Security service vendor Proofpoint have revealed their predictions for the biggest cybersecurity threats this year.
According to Proofpoint, cybercriminals will move with the times, no longer using the widely-known format of malicious document attachments. Instead they’ll target the human factor, or in other words, mankind’s natural curiosity to click on the internet.
“Our six 2016 predictions all have one theme in common — cybercriminals are targeting the people behind devices and are looking to capitalise on their willingness to click,” vice president of Threat Operations at Proofpoint Kevin Epstein told news.com.au.
With a growing number of social media accounts distributing harmful software in 2015, Proofpoint expects the incidents of malware to increase in 2016 as hackers continue to try and steal personal customer data or an organisation’s financial data.
Hackers are also expected to increase attacks on high-value financial infrastructure, like ATMs, point of sale terminals and payment portals.
Proofpoint director of Threat Intelligence Patrick Wheeler said the biggest threats this year won’t be new or revolutionary but old methods taking on a different shape.
“Truly new threats are quite rare and often expensive to threat actors. Known attacks deployed in new ways are actually a much greater threat because they are more likely to be both effective and cost-effective,” Wheeler said.
“The big ‘new’ threats of 2016 will most likely be well-known techniques from email – and web-based attacks – applied to less well-defended areas such as social media and mobile apps.”
So what’s the best way to protect yourself online?
Wheeler advises, “For individuals, the best practices are pretty well-known: run good, up-to-date protection on your devices, don’t open emails and click attachments from people you don’t know, apply relevant OS and application patches when they become available and don’t provide your personal or financial information over social media.”
While Wheeler warns all online users to be vigilant with the security of their data, he emphasised the incident of cyber-criminal activity is not actually increasing. Unfortunately, however, it is here to stay.
“We could argue that the feeling that cybercrime is getting worse is actually rooted in an increasingly widespread grasp that cybercrime isn’t going away, which is a really important – and scary – thing to realise.
“There will be cybercrime as long as there is a way to profit from stealing information online, and every individual and organisation are a potential target: understanding that, we can move on to using intelligence, education and solutions to focus on threats, risks, and response.”
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