Big & Worrying Telecoms Security Biz

Nilesh Jain ,Country Manager (India and SAARC)

By Nilesh Jain

The numbers are indeed worrying. A recent report put forth by Cybersecurity Ventures says that the worldwide expenditure on cybersecurity is estimated to go beyond $1 trillion from 2017 to 2021. A dramatic rise in cybercrime is already underway and more such cases are expected to show up in the coming times, be it the much talked about ransomware epidemic, malware going beyond PCs to enter laptops to smartphones and mobile devices, unprotected IoT devices, hackers-for hire and new forms of attacks launching themselves on consumers, businesses, governments, institutions and beyond. This is not surprising if we take into account the report released by Juniper Research. The report says that cybercrime will cost businesses over $2 trillion by 2019.

Let’s take the telecommunication sector as an instance. As guardians of networks, carriers play a crucial role in mitigating new threats that are rearing their ugly heads. With time, customers will ask for more proactive protection from the entire internet ecosystem or value chain. Carriers will be expected to support these customer demands with a whole array of technical and operational innovations. If they can take care of the solution delivery part, carriers will see the desire for greater security, a boon of sorts.

While in 2016, we saw a multitude of instances, including spoofs, ransomware, phishing, and IoT-based DDoS attacks, 2017 brings forth a host of new trends. The cybercrime landscape in India has been witness to a series of breaches off late, be it the hacking of Government agencies websites, the ATM hack that percolated down from the Himachal as well as the myriads of credit and debit card frauds, post the Digital India drive.

Let us take a closer look at some of the trends that we forecast for 2017:

Threats will become more automated: Malware will be designed as bots, for example, chatbots. Such bots will be able to easily adapt and function independently using artificial intelligence and machine learning to usher in new and innovative cyber-attacks. Such bots will easily pretend as humans. Malware will be able to make complex decisions and use analysis and intelligent prediction techniques to detect potential threats, based on the environment.

IoT A boon for cybercriminals: As IoT usage becomes more commonplace, threats will multiply manifold. Gartner predicts that more than 20 billion IoT devices are projected to be connected by 2020. Cybercrime will be a major challenge with such proportions in the fore.

Cloud computing risks: Although cloud providers are introducing multiple layers of security, cyber attackers are focusing on client-end exploits, like targeting endpoint devices and networks.

Smart cities are the new target: As cities go smarter by embracing more and more technology along the way, they will become increasingly prone to cyber-attacks. From intelligent transportation and traffic controls to interconnected building automation and IoT supported buildings, such technological breakthroughs are opening up new vulnerabilities. Hackers may take advantage of the trend and encrypt information demanding ransom in return.

Increased instances of ransomware attacks: Traditionally, financial services, retail and hospitality sectors have been the most prone to cyber-attacks. This trend will further grow in 2017 and ransom amount demands are projected to increase more.

Connected cars will be attacked for ransom: As more and more number of connected cars starts traversing the roads, new forms of cybercrimes will emerge. Cars will be held for ransom, self-drive cars will be intercepted to obtain location details for hijacking, unauthorized surveillance, and sensitive information gathering, or other forms of threats.

IoT DDoS attacks will increase: Not very long ago, the World Wide Web witnessed a pretty large scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) laced attack which made use of Internet of Things devices to proliferate itself. The new buzzword – IoT is also not immune to threats and breaches. A high profile DDoS attack recently took down Dyn (the DNS provider to Reddit, Spotify, SoundCloud and a plethora of other websites). The fault lay with the IoT devices.

Not just DDoS, IoT had been leveraged for sending spams, engage in man-in-the-middle (MitM) credentials hijacking and other such spiteful activities. In fact, IoT botnets comprising webcams, broadband routers, DVRs, cable television set-top boxes, satellite set-top boxes, etc have been conventionally used to launch DDoS attacks. Not just that, these IoT botnets are also deployed to launch DDoS attacks against online gaming networks and extortion attempts. One was even launched against an organization that was affiliated with this year’s RiO Olympics which makes it quite a scary premonition.

Nations will finance themselves by stealing money: As happened with the SWIFT attacks, several nations will partner with organized crimes for personal gains. Country’s political, economic, military and financial systems therefore will suffer.

Fileless malware will be more prominent: Fileless malware, those which are written directly onto a computer’s RAM without using files of any kind are immensely difficult to spot and often goes undetected by security protocols and antivirus program. These kind of attacks increased in 2016 and it is expected to further grow in 2017.

Drones will lead spying and explosive attacks: It’s not too late before we see drone hi-jacking where hackers will interrupt drone signals and transmit drones for the attacker’s own advantage.

The telecommunication sector will see widespread cyber-attacks: As the telecom sector drives the flow of communication and data worldwide, such organizations will be seen as potential targets for those wishing to use such networks for catering to their selfish needs. Foreign intelligence agencies have been traditionally targeting such communication providers for spreading rumors and information aggregation. Computer Network Attack (CNA) will be more widespread in the coming times.

Terrorist organisations and cyber criminals are increasingly targeting telecoms, which have diversified into financial services. Previously, attackers primarily targeted banks, now they are using the same techniques to attack telecoms.

The author of this article, Nilesh Jain ,Country Manager (India and SAARC)