ThreatMetrix®, has announced its cybercrime predictions for the New Year. From the good, such as increased information sharing, to the bad including the difficulties protecting the Internet of Things (IoT), and the ugly – data breaches in 2015 will be larger and more sophisticated than ever before – ThreatMetrix predicts the coming year will see cybercrime evolving in new ways.
The breadth and depth of the data breaches seen by the world in 2014 was shocking – spanning major banks, e-commerce giants, healthcare giants, casinos and others, exposing hundreds of millions of usernames, passwords and credit card details. The coming year will be no different, and businesses and consumers need to be prepared for continued changes in the cybercrime landscape.
To help businesses avoid falling victim to 2015 data breaches and other attacks and to educate consumers about growing cybercrime threats, ThreatMetrix has outlined several predictions for the New Year:
- Mobile Will Represent More Than Half of Transactions During the 2015 Holiday Season
During this year’s Cyber Week, from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, mobile accounted for 39 percent of all transactions across the ThreatMetrix Global Trust Intelligence Network (The Network). By next year, ThreatMetrix predicts this number will surpass 50 percent. Additionally, as retailers make the looming switch to Europay-Mastercard-Visa (EMV) payments systems by the October 2015 deadline, those systems also accept mobile capabilities such as Apple Pay, which will also contribute to increased mobile payments.
- Information Sharing Will Continue to Rise
While cybercrime threats will grow in sophistication during the coming year, information sharing about those threats within and across industries will also grow to combat those cybercriminals. For example, the financial services industry is already paving the way for growth of information sharing with the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and retailers are beginning to see the benefits of information sharing, establishing their own group this past year. The Network, which analyzes more than 850 million monthly transactions across 3,000 customers, also provides a shared view of cybercriminals’ activity, enabling companies within The Network to protect their business by accurately identifying fraudsters, as well as good customers.
“Businesses in many industries are seeing the benefit of information sharing, and that will continue to increase in the coming year,” said Andreas Baumhof, Chief Technology Officer at ThreatMetrix. “Unfortunately, while information sharing is common practice in some industries, businesses in other industries, such as retail, are often wary of sharing too much information with competitors. However, with today’s highly organized cybercriminals, it takes a network to fight a network. The balance is between businesses sharing good data, not just big data, and maintaining a certain level of trust to stay competitive with one another.”
- Cybercriminals Will Identify New Opportunities to Compromise Personal Information
In 2014, there were many high profile data breaches that were deemed “unprecedented.” Hundreds of millions of user accounts have been compromised, including the Home Depot breach and the Russian cybercrime ring exposing 1.2 billion passwords. Most recently, the Sony breach has been a sign of cybercriminals shifting their focus to cyber sabotage. In 2015, there will be more unprecedented attacks as cybercriminals continue to become more sophisticated.
- The Internet of Things Will Continue to Be a Security Nightmare
One of the first major hacks to the Internet of Things came in early 2014. It can be near impossible to know when one of the many connected devices used day-to-day is compromised – from smart phones to washing machines and refrigerators – and as more devices are added to the Internet of Things in the next year, protecting these devices will become even more difficult.
“We can’t even protect our most critical assets, so how can we be expected to protect a smart fridge?,” said Baumhof. “One of the biggest problems is that many of these tools have a long lifespan and current security systems rely heavily on the ability to patch systems on a regular basis. For most of the devices within the Internet of Things, that practice is not implemented, nor feasible.”
- Health Systems Will Become a Major Target for Cybercriminals
This year, U.S. healthcare spending hit $3.8 trillion. Unfortunately, almost one-third of that is wasted to fraud. As more money is dedicated to the healthcare market, cybercriminals will follow the trail to cash in on the market.