Industrialisation of Hacking Will Dominate The Next Decade

Imperva delineates five key security trends Organisations will face during the next ten years


London, 08 December 2009: As we approach the dawn of a new decade, battle lines are firmly drawn with Organisation’s squaring up to Cyber Criminals. Imperva, the Data Security leader, predicts five key security trends to watch for over the next ten years:

The industrialisation of hacking - Clear definitions of roles are developing within the hacking community forming a supply chain that starkly resembles that of drug cartels. The weapons of choice will be automated tools applied through botnets. Imperva recently tracked and analysed a compromise that affected hundreds of servers. The scale of this attack, and others like it, is enormous and would not be achievable without total automation.

A move from application to data security as cyber-criminals look for new ways to bypass existing security measures and focus on obtaining valuable information.

Increasing attacks through social network sites where vulnerable and less technically savvy populations are susceptible to phishing attacks and malware infection.

An increase in credential theft/grabbing attacks. As the face value of individual credit card records and personal identity records decreases (due to massive data breaches) attackers look at more profitable targets. Obtaining application credentials presents an up sell opportunity as they provide a greater immediate value to stolen data consumers up the food chain.

A move from reactive to proactive security as organisations move from sitting back and waiting to be breached, to actively seeking holes and plugging them as well as trying to anticipate attacks before they come to realization.