Future of Cyber Security

Cybersecurity is the only domain of technology that needs to act according to the future. There is no guessing what new method the hackers might use to exploit the weaknesses which once looked like strength in the domain of network security. Time and again, hackers have found new and interestingly impressive ways to break down the defenses of multiple websites or web-based services. While the motives can be different like the casual hackers who just want to test their skills, hackers who demand ransom or simply the hacktivists that try to bring the large corporations to ‘mend their ways’ by affecting their services.

No matter the motive, a hacker is a hacker. No one gives you a right to hack into the private life of someone or cause someone to lose business just because you think otherwise. In the coming years, it will become rather a difficult task to contain such an activity frankly because there is no way to predict their next plan of action. The most experts can do is, based on the pattern they can observe on which the hackers continue operating, predict the next few years and their potential targets or actions. Few of these which the experts have thought to be the threats of the future are:

• The increasing underground cybercriminal activity:
  In the good old days, the hackers undertaking the cybercriminal activities performed solely by themselves or with a group of friends sitting, trying to find Public IP addresses which can fairly easily be exploited did so not as to reap massive amounts of profits but just to wreak havoc. While this has clearly been long far gone in today’s time, the underground has been assembling and growing by the numbers.Dark web shows multiple hackers putting their services for hire and for ‘n’ amount of can simply obliterate someone’s personal or digital life. With the lack of security on the new smart devices, it has become increasingly easy for them to hack into our network and thus retrieve sensitive information to either blackmail or expose them throwing their social life amuck.The hacktivists and other cybercriminals which work to simply take down corporations for moral or monetary reasons work in groups of hundreds from across the countries and continents to hurt them bad. The experts say the number is only to increase each passing day.
• The increased use of worms to launch cyber attacks:
  Spreading Malware from worms is extremely fast and effective. The identification of said worms is tough which keep replicating the Malware software whichever network they hit. WannaCry and Trickbot used this method in the 2017 and are only expected to be used more often to affect more and more services each day.
• A breach of Cloud and Big Data servers:
  Big Data and Cloud services have extensively used in the past few years and are to rise in numbers in the coming years. The old clouds services like the Amazon, Google and IBM have been keeping up with the security to keep their data more secure and are not expected to lose the battle of cyber security so quickly. The small vendors, however, even though loaded with data, can’t seem to protect their sensitive data of the thousands and millions of users who use their services. With the leak of data, other areas of your life can get affected due to the exploitation of all the sensitive data that you hold.

The hackers have already planned to come after you but what can you, as average corporations do, in order to employ an effective defense mechanism against the very dangerous and persistent groups of hackers? Turns out there are some effective measures you can take to help you protect against the exploitation caused by these hackers and other cybercriminals.

1. Have a definite Game Plan:
   The first and the most important step here would be to be prepared for anything and everything. A brilliant and unpreventable crime is the one to which we have no prior information. The ones which we can expect and still have no way to handle is our own mistake. This is the reason that a corporation should be ready for any and all security breaches and have a playbook ready in order to know how to tackle such a data breach. This includes not just the quick response team’s actions but also the security team’s responsibility to find out what caused the data breach in the first place.Have this plan ready and perform drills in order to make sure that during a breach of this kind, the purposeful reactions become second nature and you can act way faster than you could before.
2. Attain a healthy security habit:
   At a time when a worm or a Trojan can be attached along with any file, it is more than important to keep your software updated with the latest patch and keep a thorough check on all the files you download and scan them to make sure you aren’t creating an unnecessary security threat. There is no way as an engineering or medical company; you would let defected parts or chemically unsafe medicines out in the general public. The same way you can’t let your system be infected by keeping an unhealthy security habit.

3. Employ AI in your security:
   No matter how great we try to minimize the damage of an ongoing attack, there isn’t simply a lot we can do. We may be prepared to deal with the worst, but we are in no way ready to handle or resolve the worst. This is because we are always ready for the past and not the future. The method once used shall not be used again by the hackers as they know we would be closing the security gap quickly.

The only way to get out of this fix is to employ a system that can recognize patterns, process big chunks of data at an extremely fast rate to take decisions which will close down the doors which the hackers can use to infiltrate the network.

Machine Learning, once used effectively by the AI to see these gaps and scan the applications and software quickly to pinpoint the infected files can save more than just time. A perfectly timed response can protect and save the data of thousands of people by taking the right decisions faster than a human ever could.

The future of data protection lies strictly in the hands of AI as this ‘Adaptive Security’ can shape itself to protect the data and neutralize any new emerging harmful threat from causing the damage it can without the presence of this intelligent security measure.