7 Deadly Cyber Security Threats That Businesses Should Protect Against In the Future

News of data breaches and cyber-attacks made headlines in the news more frequently than ever before. That is not good news for businesses. Cybersecurity experts agree that malicious attacks will become more sophisticated with the passage of time, making it more difficult to protect your digital assets against them. 

All this reinforces how important a cybersecurity plan really is in such a situation. It is quite unfortunate to know that most don’t have a cybersecurity plan and strategy, which leaves them at the mercy of cyber attackers. One way to protect against malicious cybersecurity attacks is to take a proactive approach. 

If you are interested in knowing about the latest security attacks that will pose a challenge to your business existence in the future then, you are at the right place. In this article, you will learn about future cybersecurity attacks you should protect against in years to come.

1. Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is the most popular and fastest-growing cybersecurity attack, overtaking ransomware, which used to take the top spot in the past. Simply put, it is the process of mining cryptocurrencies using a device. As it requires more resources and time, cryptocurrency miners and cyber attackers will look to use business infrastructure for this purpose. Cybersecurity experts predict that crypto-jacking will become a larger problem in 2023.

How can your business protect against this latest cybersecurity threat? Update your web filtering tools and install ad-blocking and anti-crypto mining extensions in your web browsers. Use mobile device management solutions especially if you allow your employees to bring their own devices. Taking these steps goes a long way in protecting your business from crypto-jacking attacks.

• Micro Ransomware

A few years back, DDoS attacks were all the rage. Businesses had no choice but to invest in DNS DDoS protection to keep their business up and running. Hackers realize that they need to up their game and get financial benefits out of successful attacks so they started launching ransomware attacks. 

With the help of ransomware attacks, they paralyze your file system, making data inaccessible. To get access to your data, they ask businesses to pay a ransom. Even after paying the ransom, you are not really sure whether they would get access to your data back or not. In the future, we will see the rise of micro ransomware attacks targeting high-profile infrastructure around the globe.

• IoT Related Attacks

According to Cisco’s prediction, we will have 30 billion connected devices by 2023. This means that the internet of things will take off. The growing trend of the internet of things will attract cybercriminals’ attention to the internet of things. This will lead to an increase in IoT-related attacks in the future. Bitdefender senior analyst Bogdan Botezatu also predicted that “The leaked Mirai code of 2016 that created a very effective legion of bots will expand and grow into IoT.”

Modern IoT botnets will be more powerful than ever before, capable of bypassing machine learning algorithms and systems responsible for protecting digital assets. Hackers can attack with brute force as it is easier to create an IoT botnet so they might attack with a large volume. This means that they can easily compromise weaker infrastructure as well as pose a challenge to even the most secure architecture.

• Mobile Malware

With mobile devices outnumbering humans, every person has multiple devices at their disposal. Cybercriminals will shift their focus from desktop to mobile devices and we will see more and more mobile malware being created. Infected apps in app stores are another way they will use to get access to your mobile devices. 

Once you install these apps on your mobile devices, malicious code is executed, giving hackers access to your private data. Google’s Play store which is the app store for android has been in the news for malicious apps. With most people accessing the internet through wireless networks, it becomes a soft target for cybercriminals. The lack of security protocols makes things worse.

• Cloud Will Come under Fire

There is no denying that cloud computing has its perks but the security of your data stored in the cloud is still a question mark. With more and more businesses shifting to the cloud, hackers will attack the cloud. Businesses can cut down their cost by investing in dedicated servers to get a truly hybrid architecture. This will help them to keep their private data in a dedicated server behind a firewall while moving the rest to the cloud. We will see more attacks on cloud services and infrastructure in years to come.

• Power shell Attacks

Open source tools are wildly popular which also makes them susceptible to abuse. Many commercial actors and APT groups have started incorporating Powershell manipulation in their malware toolkits. With malware-based toolkits becoming more and more sophisticated, your anti-virus and anti-malware software can easily be bypassed.

What’s worse is that many of these malware can change their signature, making it almost possible for the anti-malware program to neutralize them. This makes them even more dangerous for businesses with basic security. Don’t be surprised to see more Powershell attacks and sophisticated malware toolkits in the future.

• Digital Cold War

We live in a hyper-connected world where everything is connected to the internet from hospitals to sensitive governmental infrastructure. This will make room for state-sponsored attacks on sensitive infrastructure, which will lead to the digital cold war. The war will be fought on digital frontiers in the future. Malicious groups will launch assaults on sensitive infrastructures and bring the country to a standstill by paralyzing the state functions. Don’t be surprised to see cyber attacks from competitors and disrupting your business continuity. Prepare yourself for the digital cold war as it will start sooner rather than later. If you are not prepared for it, you will be on the receiving end of it.

Which cybersecurity attack will pose the biggest threat to businesses in the future? How are you planning to cope with those threats? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.