High-profile data breaches dominated the headlines in 2017, and unfortunately, these attacks are anticipated to only increase in frequency and magnitude in 2018. Breaches like those that affected LinkedIn, Dropbox and Yahoo, serve as a wake-up call for organizations to implement processes for safeguarding sensitive data and defending against attacks. However, for every advancement in cybersecurity, cybercriminals become more sophisticated in their techniques. Just when it seems like we have learned our lesson from one breach, another, more significant one occurs.
As cybercriminals continue changing the rules mid-game, it has become clear that while they’re playing chess, we’re still playing checkers. To help better prepare you and your organization for potential cyber threats, our Data Breach team has put together its yearly forecast on the issues and trends surrounding data security in 2018.
Here are our five predictions for 2018:
- The U.S. may experience its first large-scale attack on critical infrastructure, disrupting governments, companies and private citizens.
- Failure to comply with new EU regulations will result in large penalties for U.S. companies.
- Perpetrators of cyber-attacks will continue to zero in on governments – this could lead to a shift in world power.
- Attackers will use artificial intelligence (AI) to render traditional multifactor authentication methods useless.
- Vulnerabilities in Internet of Things (IoT) devices will create mass confusion, leading to new security regulations.
Download our complimentary whitepaper to learn more about how these trends will shape the coming year, see how we scored against our 2017 predictions, and check out our new section revisiting predictions dating back to our inaugural 2014 report.