Global cybersecurity leader Forcepoint today launched its 2018 Security Predictions Report, with security experts providing guidance on the threats facing organizations in the months to come.
Adding to the constantly shifting environment which security professionals face is a perfect storm of drivers influencing debate around privacy. This mega-trend will cause tectonic shifts in the privacy landscape and influence the ways in which organizations collect and manage data.
Forcepoint believes that the security industry has been focusing on the wrong things. Traditional security perimeters are eroding or becoming obsolete, and so, rather than focus on building bigger walls, the industry needs better visibility. Understanding how, when and why people interact with critical data, no matter where it is located, is crucial. Critical data continues to move to the cloud, malware is constantly evolving, and despite growing investments in defensive technologies traditional security controls prove ineffective.
A preview of the predictions made by ForcePoint:
- 2018 will ignite a broad and polarizing privacy debate, not just within governments, but between ordinary people.
- A data aggregator will be breached in 2018 using a known attack method.
- Attackers will target vulnerabilities in systems which implement blockchain technology.
- IoT is not held to ransom but instead becomes a target for mass disruption
“At the heart of our predictions is a requirement to understand the intersection of people with critical data and intellectual property,” said Dr. Richard Ford, Chief Scientist at Forcepoint. “By placing cyber-behavior and intent at the center of security, the industry has a fighting chance of keeping up with the massive rate of change in the threat environment.”
“We know that data leakage and ransomware will continue to be the focus for remediation and prevention, but behavior-centric risks are now behind a multitude of security incidents,” Ford continued. “People’s behavior should not be set in opposition to security: the two are not mutually exclusive. Users have the potential to unintentionally compromise their own systems in one minute and be the source of innovation in the next, but we can only empower users if we truly understand the ways they interact with critical business data.”