Extreme Cybersecurity Predictions for 2019
Prediction blogs are fun but also kind of dangerous because we’re putting in writing educated guesses that may never come true and then we look, um, wrong. Also dangerous because if we’re going to get any airtime at all, we have to really push the boundary of incredulity. So here at Shape, we’ve decided to double down and make some extreme cybersecurity predictions, and then we’ll post this under the corporate account so none of our names are on it. Whoa, did we just say that out loud?
Forget the Singularity, Worry About the Inversion
New York Magazine’s “Life in Pixels” column recently featured a cute piece on the Fake Internet. They’re just coming to the realization that a huge number of Internet users are, in fact, fake. The users are really robots (ahem, bots) that are trying to appear like humans—no, not like Westworld, but like normal humans driving a browser or using a mobile app. The article cites engineers at YouTube worrying about when fake users will surpass real users, a moment they call “The Inversion.” We at Shape are here to tell you that if it hasn’t happened already, it will happen in 2019. We protect the highest-profile web assets in the world, and we regularly see automated traffic north of 90%. For pages like “password-reset.html” it can be 99.95% automated traffic!
Zombie Device Fraud
There are an estimated five million mobile apps on the market, with new ones arriving every day, and an estimated 60 to 90 installed on the average smartphone. We’ve seen how easy it can be for criminals to exploit developer infrastructure to infect mobile apps and steal bitcoins, for instance. But there’s another way criminals can profit from app users without having to sneak malware into their apps—the bad guys can just buy the apps and make them do whatever they want, without users having any idea that they are using malicious software. The economics of the app business—expensive to create and maintain, hard to monetize—mean less than one in 10,000 apps will end up making money, according to Gartner. This glut of apps creates a huge business opportunity for criminals, who are getting creative in the ways they sneak onto our devices. In 2019, we’ll see a rise in a new type of online fraud where criminals purchase mobile apps just to get access to the users. They then can convert app-user activity into illegitimate fraudulent actions by hiding malware underneath the app interface. For example, a user may think he is playing a game, but in reality his clicks and keystrokes are actually doing something else. The user sees that he is hitting balls and scoring points, but behind the scenes he is actually clicking on fake ads or liking social media posts. In effect, criminals are using these purchased mobile apps to create armies of device bots that they then use for massive fraud campaigns.
Robots will Kill Again
Have you seen those YouTubes from Boston Dynamics? The ones where robots that look like headless Doberman pinschers open doors for each other? You extrapolate and imagine them tearing into John Connor and the human resistance inside. They are terrifying. But they’re not the robots we’re thinking of (yet). A gaggle of autonomous vehicle divisions are already driving robot fleets around Silicon Valley. Google’s Weymo and Uber use these robots to deliver people to their next holiday party, and we’ve heard of at least two robot-car companies delivering groceries. Uber already had the misfortune of a traffic fatality when its autonomous Tesla hit a cyclist in Arizona last year. But Uber robots will be back on the road in 2019, competing for miles with Weymo. Combine these fleets with the others, and more victims more can join Robert Williams and Kenji Urada in the “killed-by-robot” hall of fame. Hopefully it won’t be you, dear reader, and hopefully none of these deaths will be caused by remote attackers. Fingers crossed!
Reimagining Behavioral Biometrics
Behavioral biometrics are overhyped today because enterprises lack the frequency of user interactions and types of data needed to create identity profiles of digital users. But in 2019, behavioral analytics will merge with macro biometrics to become truly effective. The market will move to a combination of macro biometrics, like Face ID, and traditional behavioral biometrics, like keyboard behavior and swiping. Apple is ahead of the game with Face ID and has applied for a voice biometrics patent to be used with Siri.
Kim Jong Un as Online Crime Kingpin?
North Korea will become a dominant player in the criminal underground with more frequent and sophisticated financially motivated hacks, rivaling Russian gangs. International sanctions have pushed the country to be more economically resourceful, so it has beefed up its cyber operations.The northern half of the Korean peninsula has been blamed for cyberattacks on banks, via SWIFT transfers, and bitcoin mining, in addition to traditional espionage involving governments, aviation, and other industries. In 2019, cyber attacks originating from groups (allegedly) associated with North Korea will continue to be successful and enforcement remains challenging. And with the recent Marriott breach affecting 500 million Starwood Hotels guests, the theft of passport numbers means nation-states and other attackers have an even more valuable and rare tool at their disposal for financial, tax, and identity fraud.
All Breaches Aren’t Created Equal
As industries mature, we refine the metrics we use. In 2019 we’ll see enterprises change how they approach data breaches, moving beyond identifying size and scope, focusing instead on potency and longevity. Breach impact will be measured by the overall quality and long-term value of the compromised credentials. For instance, do these assets unlock one account or one hundred accounts? Most recently we’ve seen the Starwood data heist become one of the biggest breaches of its kind, largely due to the bevy of personal data exposed. In this case, since the unauthorized access dates back four years, we can assume this data has already fueled and will continue to fuel serious acts of financial fraud, tax fraud, and identity theft. As hacker tools become more sophisticated and spills more frequent, businesses can’t afford to ignore downstream breaches that result from people reusing the same passwords on multiple accounts. In reality, today’s breaches are fueling a complex and interconnected cybercriminal economy. In 2019, expect businesses to join forces and adopt collective defense strategies to keep one breach from turning into a thousand.
The Future Looks, Um, Futuristic!
These are our extreme predictions for 2019. Will they come true? Some of them, probably. We hope the robots don’t actually kill people, but we’re pretty sure that the Inversion (where automated traffic surpasses human traffic) is a sure bet, if it hasn’t happened already.
Where do you want to be when the Inversion happens?
Working with us, at Shape!
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Shape Security Blog authored by David Holmes. Read the original post at: https://blog.shapesecurity.com/2019/01/07/extreme-cybersecurity-predictions-for-2019/
