{"id":761,"date":"2014-02-14T04:21:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T04:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=761"},"modified":"2014-02-14T04:21:48","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T04:21:48","slug":"2014-threat-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/2014-threat-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Threat Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year McAfee releases a threat prediction report.\u00a0 As a former IT Admin, these always peak my interest.\u00a0 Security is one of the most important and talked about trends right now, and for good reason.\u00a0 Security breaches at major retailers happen every month, most recently large ones at Target and Michaels stores.\u00a0 Physical stores haven\u2019t been the only target, as online services such as Playstation Network and Dropbox have been targets of multiple attacks.\u00a0 In many cases, these breaches in security lead to the loss of credit card numbers, personal information, and usernames and passwords.<\/p>\n

In 2014 many new threats will approach us.\u00a0 As new devices release and new technology develops, we are likely to come across new threats to our personal information.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u00a0Mobile Malware Will Lead Malware Attacks \u2013 In 2013, Malware attacks on the Android platform grew by 33%.\u00a0 This trend is expected to continue growing throughout 2014.\u00a0 This is due to the large amount of unprotected and unsecured mobile devices\u00a0 on the market. \u00a0Most PC\u2019s are protected by some sort of anti-virus or anti-malware, but many mobile devices like tablets or smartphones are lacking this protection.\u00a0 They are however holding just as sensitive of information as the PC, so protecting them should be a priority.<\/li>\n
  2. Bitcoin Robbery and Ransomware \u2013 Virtual currency has become a very real investment in the last year.\u00a0 It has also become a very real target for hackers and cyber criminals.\u00a0 Ransomware attacks from software like \u201cCryptolocker\u201d encrypt your files, and demand payment in untraceable Bitcoins before it will release them.\u00a0 Bitcoin storage sites also have been hacked and had thousands of bitcoins stolen, translating into even more in US dollars.<\/li>\n
  3. Cyberterrorism and \u201cHacktivists\u201d \u2013 These events will continue to grow throughout the year as more groups try to use the net to promote their beliefs and ideas.\u00a0 It is likely we will see large corporations and sites hacked and abused to spread messages of love, hate, revenge, justice, and simple immaturity.<\/li>\n
  4. Social Media Breeding Grounds \u2013 Social Media sites will become the main breeding ground for sharing malware and stealing personal information.\u00a0 Email use to be the primary delivery system, but social networks like Facebook, Google +, and Yahoo are quickly becoming the easiest way to spread malware between users and steal information.\u00a0 Other threats also exist on social networks, including \u201cfalse flag\u201d attacks which track users into providing account information.\u00a0 This account information is used to then gain personal info, and even present urgent requests to the victim\u2019s friends for cash aid.\u00a0 However cybercriminals just need to appear to be you to pull this off.\u00a0 Facebook estimates 50-100 million of its active monthly users are duplicate profiles, and another 14 million are what they deem \u201cundesirable\u201d profiles.<\/li>\n
  5. OS Won\u2019t Be The Target \u2013 McAfee suggests that malware attacks on the operating system will be a thing of the past.\u00a0 Instead they will be focusing on the BIOS, and higher functions like HTML 5.<\/li>\n
  6. Cloud Based Targets \u2013 Cloud technologies will open lots of new targets for cybercriminals.\u00a0 Why would they hack one company\u2019s site when they can attack one cloud based app storing 100 companies data?\u00a0 This will create an extreme need for security and security experts in the cloud computing fields.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Every year McAfee releases a threat prediction report.\u00a0 As a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[508],"tags":[1164,979,447,448,1165,1166,450],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}