2020 & 2021 were two pivotal years in cybersecurity. The observation is frightening : 

• 2 in 3 businesses have experienced at least one fraud attempt this year, and 1 in 5 businesses have experienced more than 5 attacks. 

• 33% of companies victims of fraud suffered damage greater than $10K, and 14% suffered damage greater than $100K. 

• Covid-19 effect: nearly one in two companies have noticed an increase in attacks following the spread of teleworking. 

Conclusion : In 2022, cybersecurity must be a priority . 

Let’s take a look at cybersecurity predictions in 2022 and some trends to prevent cyberattacks. 

 Predictions :

• The cyber “cold war” : Or like it’s called cyberwarfare is the use of digital attacks to attack a nation, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting the vital computer systems. Well this kind of cyber war has intensified and it will intensify more next year. 

More and more nation states and groups operating on their behalf will continue to try to destabilize rival countries and governments. Terrorist groups and activities will benefit from better infrastructure and technological capabilities to launch more sophisticated attacks.

• Data breaches :  will escalate. As data breaches escalate, organizations and governments will be forced to spend more money to recover them, according to CheckPoint. 

Following the record $ 40 million ransom payment paid by insurance giant CNA Financial this year, ransom demands are expected to continue rising next year.

• Disinformation campaigns :  will flourish.  In 2021 disinformation and “fake news” surrounding the coronavirus pandemic and vaccine effectiveness has spread through social media and other venues. As a result, Dark Web cybercriminals made a nice profit by selling fake vaccine certificates to people who refused to be vaccinated. In 2022, fake news will continue to play a role in phishing campaigns and scams. Additionally, expect to see propaganda and disinformation ahead of the midterm elections in the United States in an attempt to influence voters.

• Cryptocurrency : Will play a bigger role in attacks. As money becomes more and more digital, criminals will find more and more innovative ways to steal it. 

Following reports of stolen crypto wallets triggered by free aerial NFTs, Check Point discovered that attackers could steal such wallets by exploiting security holes. Expect more cryptocurrency-related attacks in 2022.

• Microservices : Criminals will exploit vulnerabilities in microservices. Microservices have become a more common application development method supported by more cloud service providers (CSPs). But as with any popular trend, cybercriminals take advantage of vulnerabilities found in microservices to launch attacks. For 2022, expect more of these attacks targeting CSPs.

• Mobile Malware : Mobile malware attacks will increase. As organizations turned to remote and hybrid working in both 2020 and 2021 , criminals have increasingly turned to mobile malware as an attack vector.

 In 2021,  nearly half of all organizations had at least one employee who had downloaded a malicious mobile app. With the increasing use of mobile wallets and mobile payment services, attackers will continue to exploit the dependence on mobile devices. 

• Penetration Tools : Penetration tools will continue to be used in attacks. 

Although created to help organizations test their security defenses, penetration tools have been exploited by cybercriminals to help them launch more effective attacks. By customizing these tools, hackers were able to target victims with ransomware. As this tactic continues to spread, we’ll see them used to carry out more data exfiltration and extortion attacks in 2022.

 Prevention :

• User/ Customer Awareness : As their information is exposed by hackers, customers are the main victims of cybercrime. Therefore, each company should propose measures to strengthen the security of its organization and protect its customers.  

Unfortunately , many people do not know about cyberattack’s methods. Therefore it is essential to educate users to identify and prevent network privacy in order to protect the company’s reputation on the one hand, and to stop these atta

• Machine Learning :  In cybersecurity , the role of machine learning is expanding and has now become more proactive. With this last, cybersecurity becomes more simpler, more effective and less expensive. From a rich dataset, ML develops patterns and manipulates them with algorithms. This way, it can anticipate and respond to active attacks in real-time. 

This technology heavily relies on rich and sophisticated data to produce effective algorithms. The data must come from everywhere and represent as many potential scenarios as possible. Implementing ML, thus, allows cybersecurity systems to analyze threat patterns and learn cybercriminals’ behaviors. These help to prevent similar attacks in the future and also reduces the amount of time needed for cybersecurity experts to perform routine tasks.cks on the other. 

• Cloud Security : There is a need to tighten cloud security as most of the cloud services do not provide secure encryption. If the configuration of the cloud security is poor, It can lead to cybercriminals. The predictive and innovative security in the cloud fights against cyber attacks. 

In the last 3 years, the predictive security cloud has earned a 261% ROI and predictive security is necessary for cloud services. 

• GDPR Compliance :  The general data protection regulation or GDPR , is one of the most significant developments in data privacy regulation across the United states . 

GDPR imposes a uniform and consistent data security law on all US . This eliminates the need for each member state to write their data protection law. GDPR, thus , provides more consistent protection of consumer and personal data of US residents.

 

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