2017 & recent previous years have seen IT security as a hot topic when it comes to businesses. As we begin 2018, we’d like to highlight some of the key topics revolving around IT security.

Attacks are more vicious   

Remember the days when attacks were just annoying pop ups that were sent through email? They didn’t really cause much ‘destruction’ but were merely a nuisance. Nowadays attacks can do anything from spy on you remotely, key log everything you type, impersonate law enforcement for financial gain, and encrypt all your files and demand a ransom for the release.

The threats mentioned above are now becoming the ‘norm’ but must ask, what will future attacks be capable of doing?

Attacks & perpetrators are more sophisticated

You know sometimes when you can spot a dodgy email that gives an instant impression that this is spam? Whilst those are still around, less people are falling for the tricks, so attackers needed to become more creative in convincing the victim.

It is now very common that attackers will create emails designed to look like they are legit from an established organisations or clients/partners. Some will even use algorithms to predict your name, address, and other details.. Alarmingly with very accurate results, unfortunately, with victims of IT attacks are more likely to fall for these attacks.

Businesses aren’t doing enough to protect themselves

The recent wannacry attack made widespread news when the attack was launched. However, the particular strain of malware was only compatible for outdated OS’s. There has been criticism that businesses and other organisations should have taken it upon themselves to invest and use the latest technologies available to them to protect from attacks.

It is also worth noting that many businesses fail to prepare backups, or even have antivirus / malware protection for their business systems, whilst this is particularly common among small businesses, the attackers know this information and deliberately target these types of businesses. There is no excuse anymore, any business must have some form of protection, backup, and update their technologies.

Attackers are ahead of the technology companies (sometimes)

Attackers need to use / find zero days in a system, this is effectively an exploit in the operating system that the producer was originally unaware of. Attackers and technology companies are at a constant war with each other to find zero days first, however there have been instances where the attackers find the exploits first

Attacks are becoming more common

Whether it be the elections in the US, the NHS in the UK, or even DDOS on businesses, there is a constant influx of news regarding allegations and reports or cyber-attacks on businesses and organisations. Whilst it’s worth noting that usually only ‘large’ scale attacks are newsworthy, there are plenty of attacks that happen to businesses everyday.