Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism
Cybersecurity Ventures, a research company in California, published a report in 2021 that predicted that the costs of cybercrime on a global level in the next five years would add up to 10.5 trillion dollars, compared to 3 trillion dollars in 2015 (Ventures, 2019). This indicates that the trends of cybercrimes are getting more and more advanced, in addition to the old trends that we, unfortunately, have not been able to stop.
One of the future trends of cybercrimes will be a rise in ransomware. Today, more companies encourage remote working. While this may have its benefits, it also opens up the companies to cybercrime vulnerabilities like being hacked on employee devices (McElhinney & Curran, 2020). Personal devices are not as secure as corporate devices; therefore, they can easily be hacked. In addition, phishing attacks also contribute to the increase in ransomware. Secondly, cybercrime as a service economy (CaaS) will continue to rise. The dark web is known to sell cyber-attack software to individuals who are not proficient in the matter (VANISRI & GUPTA). This gives the opportunity of cyberattacking people to anyone with a grudge against a person or an organization.
In addition, cybercrime will be automated by the development of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, the Internet of Things (IoT) is evolving and growing rapidly. An estimated 64 billion devices will be connected to IoT worldwide by 2026 (Sharma et al., 2019). All these devices will dramatically change the dynamics and size of the cyber-attack surface. Notably, IoT devices contain less storage space to install cyber security programs, making these devices potential entry points for cyber-attacks (McElhinney & Curran 2020).
Several reasons point to the growth of cyberattacks in the future. First, cryptocurrency has made it hard for law enforcement to track money paid to criminals for ransomware or the purchase of cybercrime software on the dark web. Secondly, as the cyber-attack surface increases due to IoT devices, more vulnerability points for cyber-attacks will be created. Lastly, the use of social media has also continued to grow. This poses a threat to cyber-attacks; for example, people have to give information access to various social media apps when registering.
References
McElhinney, D., & Curran, K. (2020). The Rise of Ransomware Aided by Vulnerable IoT Devices. In Security and Organization within IoT and Smart Cities (pp. 221-242). CRC Press.
Sharma, N., Shamkuwar, M., & Singh, I. (2019). The history, present, and future of IoT. In Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics for Smart Generation (pp. 27-51). Springer, Cham.
VANISRI, M., & GUPTA, B. S. A DATA ANALYTICS APPROACH TO THE CYBERCRIME UNDERGROUND ECONOMY.
Ventures, C. (2019). 2019 official annual cybercrime report.
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Question
Characterize future trends of cybercrime and cyber-terrorism.
Assess why the threat from computer hacker groups will likely increase.