“We foresee that the ransomware business model will still be a cybercrime mainstay in 2018, while other forms of digital extortion will gain more ground. The ransomware attacks will manifest itself in a more ‘Specialized’ and ‘Targeted manner’, unlike the earlier approach. With respect to India, in 2018 we will experience more number of attacks targeted at the ATMs, especially malware attacks. We also expect to see a rise in security incidents across Public Cloud platforms.”
This year, cyberattacks continued to plague business leaders, with major breaches occurring due to known vulnerabilities. As per Trend Micro the trend of known vulnerabilities being used in major attacks will continue in 2018 as corporate attack surfaces expand and expose more security holes. Patch management and employee education should be prioritized for all executives to protect an organization’s most critical data.
As information technology and operational technology (IT/OT) continue to converge, enterprise applications and platforms will be at risk of manipulation and vulnerabilities, as stated in Trend Micro’s 2018 predictions report. Additionally, Trend Micro predicts an increase in Internet of Things vulnerabilities as more devices are manufactured without security regulations or industry standards. Overall, the increased connectivity and enlarged attack surface present new opportunities for cybercriminals to leverage known issues to penetrate a corporate network.
Ransomware will continue to be a mainstay due to its proven success. There will be an increase in targeted ransomware attacks, in which the criminals go after a single organization to disrupt operations and force a larger ransom payout. Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks will also continue to gain popularity with attackers, as the return on investment for successful attacks is quite high.
