Cybersecurity firm predicts trends in cybercrime for 2019

December 28, 2018 - 1:03 PM
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Cybercrime 2019 Interaksyon
A man types on a computer keyboard in front of the displayed cyber code in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. (Reuters/Kacper Pempel)

An anti-virus software company recently published its predictions for possible threats against cybersecurity in 2019.

Cybersecurity firm Kasperksy Labs released a list of its predictions, among which is an increase in attacks through the theft of biometric data, attacks against supply chain companies working with financial institutions, the rise of cybercrime groups in Asia and Central Europe and attacks geared towards by-passing anti-fraud solutions particularly against systems which accept online payments.

The company also predicted that simple targets will likely fall victim to cyberattacks: bank clients using mobile banking platforms, company employees with internal cash flow information who have already fallen victim to data leaks as well as ordinary users through physical devices connected to their computers.

According to the firm, “immature” cyber security systems could lead to the rise of regional cybercrime, while growing trends such as social engineering and mobile banking are opportunities for exploitation.

With 2018 about to close, cybersecurity firms have released pointers on how to combat hacking and other cyberattacks ahead of the new year.

Cybercrime in 2018

Kasperksy said that among its previous predictions for 2018, those that actually took place include attacks on supply chain companies in the financial world, attacks on mass media and social media, ATM malware automation and attacks on crypto exchange platforms.

2018 saw a staggering rise in data breaches in the world’s biggest social media platforms. Facebook admitted to a data breach compromising 50 million users worldwide after a massive cyberattack.

Later that year, Google confessed that a bug in its Google+ social media platform shared access to data from users’ accounts from March 2015 until early 2018, when it was fixed. Google later closed down the platform.

Apart from social media, a number of large companies also suffered from massive data breaches. U.S-based wireless telecommunications company T-Mobile reported that information from 2 million customers was compromised during a massive cyberattack.

International football body FIFA also fell victim when it reported that 3.4 terabytes and 70 million documents were leaked.