10 Security Predictions For 2015 - CRN

CRN, By Rob Westervelt

2015 Brings No Relief From Threats

Business owner angst about dangerous threats to sensitive data and intellectual property has increased significantly in 2014, driven by a spate of high-profile retail data breaches and ending with the disturbing, and still inexplicable, Sony breach that is worthy of a movie studio script itself. Despite recent law-enforcement victories bringing down CryptoLocker and other dangerous attack tools, the hacking economy thrives. Financially motivated cybercriminals are undertaking multistaged attacks and use increasingly complex and automated back-end systems that sustain their underground hacking markets where they sell and barter their stolen goods and services.

The direness of the situation has hit corporate boardrooms, and the latest studies suggest security is taking up a larger share of IT budgets. CRN pulled together these 10 security predictions that may impact the channel most in 2015, and shape how organizations buy technology and services to bolster their security postures.

10. Growing Army of Cybermercenaries Muddle Threat Landscape

There used to be a clear delineation between financially motivated attacks, hacktivist threats and nation-state-driven cyberespionage. Security experts recommend organizations determine what adversaries they have to defend against, but a growing paid-for-hire army of cybermercenaries are blurring the line between those three types of breaches. Research from Kaspersky Lab on a targeted attack campaign called Icefog first suggested growing signs that private for-hire cybermercenaries may be supporting nation-state attacks. The attackers' only ideology is money. They specialize in hit-and-run operations, getting in and stealing as much data as possible, including the kind of intellectual property coveted by intelligence gatherers. Kaspersky predicted in 2013 to expect "APT-for-hire groups to grow." The confusion over whether North Korea or a hacktivist group was behind the latest Sony Pictures Entertainment breach may be proving that prediction true. The attack on Sony started with a message attempting to extort senior-level executives, a tactic reserved mostly for financially motivated attackers. It then led to leaked emails, unreleased films and other sensitive documents, which rings true with hacktivist motivations. Then it turned to nation-state driven attacks. Maybe Kaspersky's 2013 prediction is holding true and, if so, look for documents in 2015 that point to a growing for-hire cybermercenary force. Read more.