Trends in Cybersecurity That You Should look out for in 2018
We are looking ahead to the New Year in just a few days’ time after a 2017 year that was highly eventful. In 2017, we have seen a higher number of cybercrimes with some of them being so high profile that they grabbed the headlines in our print and electronic media. 2018 is expected to generate further debates about the landscape of cyber threats to businesses and individual accounts. Cyber-attacks and threats will not go away in 2018 and are here to stay despite the numerous measure that has been put in place by system security experts. These cyber risks are expected to expand in volume and scope in 2018 as they may diversify and evolve.
However, a common denominator in cyber security management will persist the understanding and insight of the extent of
In this article, we are going to highlight the trends in cybersecurity and threat management that business organizations shouldn’t ignore going into 2018.
Boosting cyber defenses using machine learning and artificial intelligence
The advent of artificial intelligence has transformed the way companies conduct their business operations entirely. AI has been incorporated into digital marketing where it helps in the creation of high-quality content and keywords placement for search engine optimization purposes. As AI and machine learning continue to evolve, they are set to play a significant role in cybersecurity and threats management. Machine learning will be able to predict trends that cybercriminals use to compromise the integrity of critical information of a company and device measures to halt such attacks. In the coming year of 2018, IT professionals will train these machine learning and artificial systems in ways to detect a cybercrime and factors that may lead to such an infiltration. However, these two technologies pose the threat of being used by hackers to predict systems that can be infiltrated easily or systems with poor system security measures.
Compromising democracy
One of the most critical areas in our system of governance is the electoral voting system which has always played catch up to the technological advancements that have characterized the 21st century and especially the last decade. The electronic voting system in the United States was allegedly compromised in the previous presidential election where experts say the cybercrimes were targeting voter fraud in favor of some candidates. The fact that such systems can be compromised has brought us to the reality of over-relying on technology for an exercise that is as paramount to the American people as presidential elections.
Such realizations have posed the question of whether we should rely on technology wholly or partially to run elections. Cyber-attacks on electronic electoral systems may not compromise democracy. However, such crimes may pose significant challenges in how future elections will be managed and the legitimacy of the entire process. Electoral systems should be viewed as critical elements in the governing infrastructures of every government where governments should put in place stringent measures to ensure that they are not compromised.
Testing of applications and patching
There is an astonishing number of cyber-attacks that happened in 2017 as a result of the incorporation of a slow approach to patching and known vulnerabilities. Just like in any problem-solving approach, identifying the problem without acting is always ineffective. Many businesses ignore the testing of the business applications or even updating their software which leaves them vulnerable to hacking. It is apparent that you will never know how secure your system is without testing the supplications that run it. We would see a significant drop in the number of security breaches in the coming year if all companies took the initiative of patching testing their applications.