ESET, a global pioneer in proactive protection for more than two decades, has highlighted the top cybercrime trends and predictions for 2015.
While last year’s focus was on internet privacy and Android malware, new areas of InfoSecurity risks are bubbling to the top in 2015.
Targeted attacks on the rise
Targeted attacks, often referred to as Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), continue to become more sophisticated in 2015. Designed to silently target a specific victim, the targeted attacks can often lurk undetected on less secure networks.
“The attack vector for targeted attacks most commonly takes advantage of social engineering attacks,” said Pablo Ramos, head of the research lab at ESET Latin America. “This is where psychological manipulation is used to encourage potential victims into performing actions or divulging confidential information. Attacks also take the form of zero-day exploits, where attacks exploit newly discovered vulnerability on a particular operating system or application.”
Digital payment systems attract more malware
2014 witnessed the largest known digital payment attack to date, with a hacker reportedly harvesting more than $600,000 USD in Bitcoins and Dogecoins by using a network of infected machines. Digital payment systems will be prone to more cyber attacks in 2015.
Internet of Things – new toys for hackers
With new devices, which connect to the Internet and store more data, available in market, cybercrime is spreading its wings. This year we witnessed more evidence of this growing trend, like attacks on cars shown on Defcon conference using the ECU devices, or the Tesla car that was hacked to open doors while in motion.
“This is an emerging space for cybercrime and should remain an area of focus for security industry,” added Camilo Gutierrez, Senior Security Researcher at ESET Latin America.