The dire need for security researchers and incident response personnel is growing faster than the available talent pool. This will prompt organisations to rely on the automation of manual, time-consuming security tasks. It’s the only practical short-term way to free-up the thinning ranks of security teams to focus on critical and strategic security work.
"Organisations will realise that algorithms – not Big Data – are the key to detecting and mitigating active cyber attacks.
To combat cyber attacks that evade perimeter security, enterprises are collecting petabytes of flow and log data in hopes of detecting attacks. These systems turn into unwieldy analysis projects that typically detect an attack only after the damage is done, wasting valuable time and money. Threat detection algorithms will play a significant role in making Big Data more useful and actionable.
"The European Union will be forced to back-off privacy protection rules and consider mandatory breach reporting.
The old security paradigm is that someone’s data traffic must be inspected to determine the presence of a cyber threat or attack, resulting in the potential for privacy violations. However, new innovations in data science, machine learning and behavioural analysis will enable protection while preserving privacy.
"Cyber attackers will increasingly use mobile devices to get inside enterprise networks.
"SSL decryption becomes more difficult
Attackers increasingly target and compromise certificate authorities as part of sophisticated man-in-the-middle attacks. This leads more applications to enforce strict certificate pinning, and consequently make the inspection of SSL encrypted traffic far more difficult for traditional security products.
"Ransomware will focus more on holding enterprise assets hostage and less on individuals.
Ransomware will take on a new, larger role by concentrating attacks on enterprises, holding critical asset hostage in return for even bigger money. Attackers love ransomware because it offers a more direct path to cash and is more profitable by eliminating the complex network of criminal fencing operations.
"Eastern European sources will mount an increasing number of targeted attacks against government and big business.
Whether mounted by sophisticated criminal organisations or nation states, cyber attacks from Eastern Europe will continue to grow. More high-profile organisations will publicly apologise for cyber breaches that compromise personal information, intellectual property and even classified data, causing significant embarrassment and damage to their reputations."
