What Cyber Attacks Are Waiting For Us In 2019?

Over the last few quarters, we have seen several high-profile cyber attacks. Most recently, it was discovered that Marriott International/Starwood may have been stolen of around 500 million customers’ data.

Does this signal an even worse hacking context for 2019?

The answer to this question is an absolute Yes. For years, cyber breaches have disturbed the economy, but due to the continuous development of malware will worsen this issue.

Moreover, companies tend to move towards digitization for better efficiency, lower costs, and the establishment of data-driven firms, which has also made them potential targets for attackers. This will get worse due to the expansion of the digital economy and the increasing use of AI as well as machine learning technology that can pose bad behaviors.

Attackers can take advantage of AI-driven chatbots, turn crimeware into profitable services, weaponize data, bring back ransomware, and conduct cyber attacks nationwide.

Additionally, crypto jacking is also on the rise, this is the kind of cyber attacks that steal resources from victims by evading initial access and using drive-by scripts on sites. And we witness more of software subversion.

The following are the top potential threats for next year.

The appearance of AI-driven chatbots

In 2019, black hat hackers and cybercriminals will create chatbots which trick Internet users to click links, download files, or share their personal data. Victims can be easily misdirected to enter dangerous links instead of legitimate ones. Attackers may also break into legitimate mobile apps and add a malicious chatbot.

Crimeware gets business in cities

It is likely that rivals will take advantage of new tech tools to strike on data integrity, attack computers so badly that hardware is forced to be replaced. Cyber terrorism may thrive too.

Nation attacks rise considerably

Russia seems to lead this game. For instance, earlier this year, the FBI revealed that the Russian Sofacy group managed to remotely control over 500,000 network and home office routers that are attached to storage devices across the world. Attacks like this are likely to get more common in the upcoming year thanks to billions of IoT devices with poor security.

Data weaponization increases

Even though tech giants are trying to improve user privacy and security, data weaponization will undoubtedly get worse in 2019.

Take Facebook, for example, the company has used users’ private data to earn billions of dollars. When users hit like for their favorite brands, Facebook collects this information, completing the picture of its user base, which then serves as a gold mine to advertisers.

Even worse, the social giant did an experiment to test how emotional contagion can emerge among users.

Ransomware crawls back

In 2017, ransomware boomed after the WannayCry outbreak and several successful ransomware aiming at high-profile victims. FBI reported that the US paid over $1 billion of ransomware payment each year. In 2019, there will be more ransomware occurrence as well as the number of payments will rise.

Subversion of software sneaks in through update supply chains

There has been malware found in certain open sources of software. When users download then install updates on their device, they accidentally give malware access to their system. In 2017, on average, one attack occurred a month as opposed to zero in 2016. But this kind of attacks came back in 2018 and is likely to get worse next year.

More cyber attacks on satellites

In June, it was reported by Symantec that an anonymous group successfully attacked the satellite communications of geospatial imaging and mapping telecom firms in Southeast Asia. Reports from Symantec also points out that 2017 witnessed similar attacks from China, targeting a satellite of defense contractor.

Additionally, at the yearly Black Hat information security conference in August, we were informed that hackers can easily handle the satellites that planes, ships, and the military use to access the Internet. In the worst potential scenario, hackers could turn antennas on satellites into weapons which work like microwave ovens, this kind of attack is named cyber-physical attacks.

One thing we can rely on is 2019 potential threats do not include AI.