cyber crime
is perpetrated by insiders…
Targeted attacks and sophisticated spam
The more we do and share online, the more vulnerable we may be to “targeted” attacks to steal our passwords and data. “It is possible that our willingness to share and shop online will let criminals become more selective about who they target,” suggests Stephen Bonner of KPMG.
“They won’t need to maintain the current ‘hit and hope’ approach of spear phishing, instead only attacking specific users and computers based on the data these give away about their owners.”
Meanwhile, you may see more spam emails in your inbox in 2015, as the technology used to send them becomes more sophisticated.
“Cybercriminals upping their game are perfecting their campaign abilities previously associated only with advanced, targeted attacks. These advanced tactics designed to evade most modern email security solutions are quickly becoming the new norm as more sophisticated email threats increase,” suggests WebSense.
“As a result, although spam volumes are decreasing, most users will begin to witness an increase in the amount of spam they receive in their inbox, because most email security measures will be incapable of detecting them in the Cloud scrubbing prior to passing to a user’s inbox.”
Banking and healthcare companies at risk
A parallel trend cited by several of the companies is the prospect of attacks on bigger companies in the private and public sector, with cybercriminals having specific goals in mind.
“Cybercriminals will go after bigger targets rather than home users as this can generate more profits for them. We will see more data breach incidents with banks, financial institutions, and customer data holders remaining to be attractive targets,” suggests Trend Micro.
“Weak security practices like not using two-factor authentication and chip-and-pin technology continue to persist in the banking sector. These practices will cause financially motivated threats to grow in scale throughout the coming year.”
Healthcare is also expected to be a target. “Companies operating in the sector are a privileged target because of the wealth of personal data they manage, and that represents a precious commodity in the criminal underground,” notes InfoSec Institute.
“Healthcare data are valuable because medical records can be used to commit several types of fraudulent activities or identity theft. Their value in the hacking underground is greater than stolen credit card data.”
WebSense’s Carl Leonard agrees. “The healthcare industry is a prime target for cybercriminals. With millions of patient records now in digital form, healthcare’s biggest security challenge in 2015 will be keeping personally identifiable information from falling through security cracks and into the hands of hackers.”
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/increasing-it-effectiveness/publications/assets/pwc-2014-us-state-of-cybercrime.pdf
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