Hoping to give our readers an edge on awareness and combatting security and investigation concerns in 2012, below are our top five predictions in the area of information and data security management. (Next week, in II of this two-part series, we will cover the remaining five predictions, focused on evolving investigation concepts.)

1. Social networking redefining “privacy”.

Confidential user information is ending up online, in large part by the users themselves.  We’ve grown into a society that maintains a different attitude toward protecting and sharing information. We are now more likely to reveal personal data and unlikely to take steps to keep information restricted.  Within several years, privacy-conscious individuals will be in the minority.

2. Hackers will attack nontraditional targets.

To date, hackers’ goals have been mainly to steal money, obtain valuable data for resale, disrupt services and intimidate targets ranging from individuals to large corporations and governmental agencies.  The new hack attacks will now concentrate on network-connected systems, such as medical equipment, actively controlling devices from external locations by unauthorized users. (This may explain the decision to not enable online election voting  as within a networked system there is a 100% probability of its vulnerability to outside hacking attacks, which may include data interruption or manipulation.)

3. Smartphone and tablet platforms, especially Android, will suffer greater cybercriminal attacks.

As smartphone usage continues to grow worldwide, so will mobile platforms attacks. The Android platform, in particular, due to its open app distribution model, is and will continue to be, a favored cybercrminal’s target.

4. Virtual and cloud-based computing systems will encounter the same cybercriminal vulnerabilities as do physical systems.

The inevitable, using and or interacting with virtual and cloud-based computing systems, renders them just as vulnerable by conventional attack methods that hackers have used in the past.  They see no need to change their criminal methodology as virtual and cloud platforms are just as easy to attack as physical systems but more difficult to protect. The burden will thus fall on IT admins to secure their company’s critical data as they adopt these technologies.

5. Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) data breaches will dramatically increase.

The BYOD Era is here and, if anything, mobile device usage will only increase. As more and more corporate data is stored or accessed by mobile devices that are not fully controlled by IT administrators,  the likelihood of data loss incidents will rise.  The massive uptick expected in this area is directly attributable to improperly secured personal devices.

Just my thoughts:  In the past decade+, I’ve noticed the wide range of expertise among IT administrators.  Operating an entity’s internal information engine is one thing, securing it is an entirely different matter.  Given the cost that security breaches can and have caused, perhaps it is time to upgrade the post-certification requirements for IT admins.  Continuing education classes and annual re-certification may be viable solutions to the rapidly rising level of cybercriminality.

Our Operatives: Street smart; Tech savvy.

As always, stay safe.

Related articles

• Cyber criminals targeting mobile devices (premierlinedirect.co.uk)
• Cloud Computing: Predictions For 2012 (cloud-computing.learningtree.com)
• Social networking sites vulnerable to attacks in 2012 (thehindu.com)

Filed under: cyber crime, data, information, security | Tagged: Android, breach, Cloud computing, Computer crime, Computer security, data, Mobile operating system, security, smartphone | Leave a Comment »