CyberScout shares key cybersecurity predictions for 2020; predicts persistent threats in areas of privacy and cybersecurity

As 2019 comes to an end, cybersecurity experts are preparing for a new year—and a new decade—and all the cyber scams, breaches, attacks and privacy concerns that threaten consumers and businesses. CyberScout continues to strengthen defenses against the constantly evolving cyber threats that will shape the 2020 security landscape, encouraging consumers and business owners to stay informed and aware. 

"While consumers and business leaders are more aware of cybersecurity and privacy than ever before, cybercriminals continue to innovate," said CyberScout founder and chairman Adam Levin. "As defenses improve, the attack vectors become more nuanced and technically impressive. You are your best guardian when it comes to your privacy and personal cybersecurity."  

Levin's has listed the following 20 cybersecurity predictions for 2020:

1. Cybersecurity workforce shortages. There will be a shortage of experts, adding pressure on CISO's charged with tackling an increasing issue environment. With the demand for cybersecurity professionals far exceeding supply, the market will have to start filling openings with less qualified people. 

2. The disinformation blob will grow. With the success of weaponized misinformation campaigns in the 2016 and 2018 U.S. elections, expect to see more of them in the private sector, with businesses adopting troll farm tricks to hurt the competition. 

3. Ransomware will continue to thrive. Phishing attacks will continue to lead to ransomware infecting more and more networks. Businesses, municipalities and other organizations will continue to pay whatever they must in order to regain control of their data and systems, and will also see better backup practices that will help minimize or neutralize the threat of these attacks.  

4. IoT botnets will make dystopian paranoia seem normal. IoT will continue to grow exponentially. In 2020, there will be somewhere around 20 billion IoT devices in use around the world. Unfortunately, many are not secure because they are protected by nothing more than manufacturer default passwords readily available online. They will be weaponized (like in years' past), but with increasing skill and computing power.
   
   
   

5. The integrity of the U.S. elections will be questioned—for good reason. There are still voting machines in use that are far from secure and would not pass the simplest of audits. Some states continue to use machines that leave no paper trail. Look forward to questions regarding election security all year.  

6. Cryptocurrency miners will continue to get rich off stolen electricity. Related to the botnet craze, we will see an increase in computing power theft used to mine cryptocurrency. With bots becoming exponentially more effective as the result of AI and cloud computing, a renaissance of Wild West behavior in the global blockchain digital ledger can be expected. 

  

7. Zero-trust environments will be talked about. A few may exist. The assumption that one can trust the home team—people within one's organization—has been replaced with zero-trust policies. Zero-trust simply means that no one can be trusted, in or outside the organization. With this assumption foremost, new systems make breaches and compromises harder to happen. 

8. More people will know what "protect surface" means. Protect surface is part of the zero-trust environment. An organization's attackable surface includes every error-prone human in its employ as well as the mistakes in configuration they may have committed along the way and any number of other issues. The protective surface is much smaller and must be kept out of harm's way. The more the subjects is spoken about, the stronger its cybersecurity is expected to be. 

9. Cars will be frozen. Driverless cars are going to hit things as well as get hit by hackers. Cars that talk to satellites are toast. It's going to happen. (Or not. But it totally could.) 

10.  5G will make the cyber smash grab a thing.  5G is going to make everything move fast, as will the new generation USB4 devices. With quicker speed, it will take much less time to transfer data. Coincidentally, criminals appreciate this as much as the rest of us.  

11. Social media will no longer need to be private. Social media companies will probably become a bit more responsible when it comes to the way they gather, store, crunch, analyze and sell our data to marketing companies and small to medium sized businesses looking to connect directly with consumers. 
    
    
    

12.  State-sponsored traffic jams will be a thing. Hackers are going to target operational systems with an array of tactics that include ransomware and more DDoS attacks that will snarl things up in ways we've not yet seen. The targets will be financial institutions, the power grid, elections, proprietary business information, city services and infrastructure like traffic lights and much more that can wreak havoc on our day to day lives.

13.  You're going to have personal cyber insurance. Insurance companies will be writing more comprehensive cyber liability policies for businesses and offering innovative personal cyber coverage for consumers. 

14.  HR will save money by spending some. More employers will offer their employees identity protection products and services as part of their paid or voluntary benefits programs. An employee who has their identity stolen is not very productive and if, as part of that identity theft, their user ID or passwords are exposed, a thief might have what he or she needs to access an employer's network and sensitive databases. 

15.  The cloud will leak. The parade of stories about misconfigured cloud clients and data stored without any password protection on cloud services will continue apace, perhaps in part because of the CISO and cybersecurity workforce shortage discussed in the first prediction.  

16.  AI will gladly take one’s job. AI is here and it's willing to work. The CISO shortage as well as many of the innovations discussed in this list of predictions will be increasingly addressed and powered by Artificial Intelligence. 

"Disinformation efforts, election security and continued attacks on local governments and major metropolitan hubs are escalating concerns of how disruptive and dangerous cybercrimes are becoming," continued Levin. "2020 promises to be an interesting ride. Be smart and stay safe by staying informed and seeking cyber insurance protection for you, your family and your business."  

Kaspersky sees a sky-rise of droppers with phishing and malware attacks surface amid premiere of famous space saga

According to research from Kaspersky, the latest and final film of the trilogy has drawn the attention of attackers even before the premiere, with fraudulent websites and malicious files of the yet-to-be-released film flooding the web. Popular films are often used by cybercriminals as bait to distribute malware, and the latest movie saga from ‘a galaxy far, far away’ is no exception. 

Films are one of the main forms of entertainment users seek to access for free, which creates fertile soil for cyberattacks. Online streaming, torrents and other methods of digital distribution often infringe upon content copyright, and yet they remain popular as a source of free content. 

Torrent-trackers and illegal streaming platforms pose a threat to users’ cyber-safety, since they can host malicious files, masked behind the name of movie files. Given this tendency, Kaspersky studied how the sci-fi franchise’s name is being abused by cybercriminals in order to fool fans.

Public attention on “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” which premieres Dec. 19, is already attracting cybercriminals. Kaspersky researchers found over 30 fraudulent websites and social media profiles disguised as official movie accounts (the actual number of these sites may be much higher) that supposedly distribute free copies of the latest film in the franchise. These websites collect unwary users’ credit card data, under the pretense of necessary registration on the portal.

The domains of websites used for gathering personal data and spreading malicious files usually copy the official name of the film and provide thorough descriptions and supporting content, thereby fooling users into believing that the website is, in some way, connected to the official film. 

Such practice is called “black SEO,” which enables criminals to promote phishing websites high up in search engine results (such results often show up for search terms such as ‘name-of-the-film watch free’).

To further support the promotion of fraudulent websites, cybercriminals also set up Twitter and other social media accounts, where they distribute links to the content. Coupled with malicious files shared on torrents, this brings the criminals results. So far, 83 users have already been affected by 65 malicious files disguised as copies of the upcoming movie.

Phishing is not the only way cybercriminals tend to utilize popular film franchises. Just as with TV shows, they often disguise malicious programs as yet another episode of the story. In 2019, Kaspersky detected 285,103 attempts to infect 37,772 users seeking to watch movies of the renowned space-opera series, a 10 percent rise compared to last year. The number of unique files used to target the users amounted to 11,499, a 30 percent drop from last year.

“It is typical for fraudsters and cybercriminals to try to capitalize on popular topics, and ‘Star Wars’ is a good example of such a theme this month,” said Tatiana Sidorina, security researcher at Kaspersky. “As attackers manage to push malicious websites and content up in the search results, fans need to remain cautious at all times. We advise users to not fall for such scams and instead enjoy the end of the saga on the big screen.”

Users have been advised to take the following steps by paying attention to the official movie release dates in theaters, on streaming services, TV, DVD, or other sources; avoid clicking on suspicious links, such as those promising an early view of a new film; and paying special attention to the downloaded file extension. The file should have an .avi, .mkv or .mp4 extension, among other video formats, and not the suspicious .exe extension.

Consumers must check the website’s authenticity, and avoid visiting websites to watch a movie until they are sure that they are legitimate and start with ‘https.’ Confirm that the website is genuine by double-checking the format of the URL or the spelling of the company name, reading reviews about it and checking the domains’ registration data before starting downloads. It also uses reliable security solution, such as Kaspersky Security Cloud, for comprehensive protection from a range of threats.

Dell Security lists essential tips to help keep cybercriminals at bay this holiday season

With the start of the holiday season, Dell Security expects consumers to be doing some online shopping. However, cybercriminals are also shopping around the same time.

The uptick in online shopping during the holidays leaves more chances for cybercriminals to steal data. This can happen in any number of ways – visiting compromised websites, clicking on phishing emails or fake social media posts, falling for holiday charity scams and even buying from fraudulent shopping sites. The methods vary and cybercriminals get more innovative each year, but their goal remains the same: steal personal and financial information.

Here are a few precautions that users must take to help protect their information while shopping online. Users must make sure that the website they are using is secure by looking at the URL. If it begins with https:// (there must be an “s” after http), then the website is secure and will encrypt information. Also, strive to use sites with reputable brands which are known and trusted.

Consumers must completely avoid using public computers for online shopping. Public computers, like those in libraries and hotel business centers, may contain malicious software that could steal personal information. At the same time, users must be wary of public Wi-Fi, which may not be secure and could provide easy access for criminals to intercept personal data.

Adoption of strong passwords is critical and important way to securing devices. Use a combination of numbers, letters and symbols to make password complex and difficult to guess, and don’t use names of family members, pets or birthdays. Caution must be exercised and never use the same password across multiple sites. Clients must resist clicking on bogus links and attachments in emails, tweets, social media posts and online advertising are ways cybercriminals can compromise the device. 

If it looks suspicious, delete it. Also, always hover over a link with the mouse and review the destination address carefully before you click.

Users must remain in the know with account alerts by activating fraud alerts with bank, credit cards, and credit bureaus to help detect suspicious activities like new payee, money withdrawal, high-value credit card transaction, activity in unusual locations, etc.

Another precaution users must take is to be sure to ship their new purchases to a secure location. If the user is aware that they won’t be home, ship to the office or to a neighbor to help prevent package theft. Also, packages left on a porch or otherwise in site of the public could be an indicator, users may be away from home and invite criminal activity.

Staying safe online will continue to require vigilance, and the convenience of online shopping will continue to come with risks. But by being diligent when shopping online, users can help combat cybercriminal activity during the holidays and year-round.

Cortical.io releases initial application of real-time semantic supercomputing based on natural language understanding

Cortical.io announced Tuesday debut of a new class of high-performance enterprise applications based on “Semantic Supercomputing,” which combines Cortical.io AI-based NLU software inspired by neuroscience with hardware acceleration to create new solutions to understand and process streams of natural language content at massive scale in real time.

The first application of Semantic Supercomputing, a Messaging Classification Appliance that can filter, classify and route streams of messages in real time by understanding the semantic content – the meaning and intent of the messages – was unveiled Tuesday at Xilinx Developer Forum (XDF) Europe keynote session in The Hague.

The Cortical.io approach to NLU is inspired by the latest findings on the way the brain processes information. This approach provides advantages over traditional machine learning methods and helps businesses solve many open NLU challenges like meaning-based filtering of terabytes of unstructured text data, real-time topic detection in social media, or semantic search over millions of documents across languages.

Building on the alliance announced with Xilinx at last month’s at XDF Americas in San Jose, Cortical.io is developing this first of a series of FPGA-based appliances powered by Xilinx Alveo accelerator cards. Cortical.io also announced it is partnering with Supermicro (SMCI), vendor of enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions and green computing technology, to deliver the email solution on a pre-loaded server. 

The appliance will enable enterprises to filter and route massive volumes of email messages in real time with high precision and recall based on the meaning of the message. The product will be available in the first quarter of next year.

“Ever-increasing unstructured data is overwhelming the world and the available processing power and current statistical approaches to deal with it,” said Francisco Webber, co-founder and CEO of Cortical.io. “We are taking the concept of supercomputing to the next level with the introduction of Semantic Supercomputing and the ability to deliver real-time processing of semantic content.”

“The goal is to reduce the wasted efforts of handling irrelevant or misdirected emails by first line business operations – including support, sales, purchasing,” said Cortical.io CMO Steve Levine. “The appliance will be able to handle a massive volume of messages daily in real time.”

Enterprise system administrators will be able to train the system and customize the filtering and routing based on a small number of sample emails. Once trained, the appliance works across multiple languages (English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Cantonese, Arabic, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch).

“The demand for real-time AI services has never been greater and, together with Cortical.io and Supermicro, we’re excited to be building a solution for solving the incredible processing challenges of real-time Natural Language Understanding on a massive scale,” said Adam Scraba, director of marketing, Data Center Group, at Xilinx.

“Supermicro’s proven and extensive server portfolio when combined with Xilinx Alveo accelerators and the Cortical.io AI-based NLU software, delivers a sophisticated enterprise platform to address the growing data explosion, especially email,” said Don Clegg, senior vice president, Worldwide Sales, Supermicro.

This is the first instance of using the power of semantic supercomputing. 

“Our goal is to make possible the broad implementation and deployment of AI solutions for automating business processes and solving the most challenging use cases that depend on human understanding, decision making and execution,” added Cortical.io CEO Webber.