Kaspersky Lab expects dramatic change in APT structures

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Furthermore, the experts see that there is less urge to demonstrate superior cyber skills, so return on investment will rule much of the nation-state attacker's decision-making. Therefore there will be an increase in the repurposing of off-the-shelf malware rather than investment in bootkits, rootkits and custom malware that gets burned by research teams.

In a more long-term perspective, there is an expectation that more newcomers will enter the APT space. Cyber mercenaries will grow in number as more parties seek to gain from online attacks. These are expected to offer attack expertise to anyone willing to pay, and also to sell to interested third-parties digital access to high-profile victims, in what could be called an Access-as-a-Service offering.

Consumer threats

Consumer threats will also evolve. Ransomware will be gaining more ground on banking Trojans and is expected to extend into new areas such as OSX devices, often owned by wealthier and therefore more lucrative targets in addition to mobile and the Internet-of-Things.

Cyber criminals are constantly looking for new ways to make their victims pay. Therefore, alternative payment systems such as ApplePay and AndroidPay, as well as stock exchanges are expected to become growing targets for financial cyber attacks.

In 2015, Kasperksy Lab experts witnessed a rise in the number of DOXing, public shaming and extortion attacks, as everyone from hactivists to nation-states embraced the strategic dumping of private pictures, information, customer lists, and code to shame their targets. Sadly, Kaspersky Lab expects this practice to continue to rise exponentially in 2016.

"As for South Africa, we see a decrease in Internet pricing from Internet service providers and more affordable mobile data plans being available," says Dirk Kollberg, senior security researcher, Global Research & Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab. Therefore, we are likely to get an increase in online users together with an increase in the number of attacks targeting their financial and personal data on mobiles and PCs."

No change predicted

"Ransomware has seen a rise in South Africa, and unfortunately the trend will not change. Also there are more and more companies choosing to keep their data in the cloud due to the reduced costs and the grown Internet speed, so the opportunity for malware writers to steal company data has become a much bigger risk than a few years ago," Kollberg says.

In order to be able to minimise the future risks connected with cyber-attacks of the future, businesses should create and deploy a complete security strategy. It is important to educate staff about cyber security, implement multi-layered endpoint protection with extra proactive layers and protect all elements of infrastructure, patch vulnerabilities, mind everything that is mobile and implement encryption for communication and sensitive data. Companies that have high risks of encountering cyber attacks should consider creating a dedicated security operations centre.

Individuals should invest in a robust security solution for all devices and switch to encrypted communication. However, they should not solely rely on technology. Studying the basics of cyber security and exploring options that come with the protective solution can save from many incidents.

With more and more of our lives being exposed online, it might be useful to revise online habits. Once the information is uploaded it stays online forever and can be used against you or your company.