Top 10 Emerging Cyber Security Trends for 2022

Cyber attacks are not new in fact they are increasing with the evolution of modern technologies and the world transforming digitally. Cybercriminals can capture your personal information and can expose it or even shut down your entire business operations by exposing confidential information. Facebook, Dominos, Microsoft, and many more are the victims of such types of cyber attacks. With companies shifting to remote work since the pandemic began, they have become more vulnerable to malicious attacks. To overcome such attacks you must keep a close watch on the emerging trends in cybersecurity. This article will focus on the top cybersecurity trends for 2022.

1. User Awareness

Customers are the main victims of cybercrimes as their information is exposed by hackers. Every organization, thus, should come up with measures to strengthen the safety of their organization and protect their customers. It is also important to bring awareness among the users to identify and to prevent network hacks to protect the reputation of the company. Many people are unaware of the cyberattack methods. Therefore, it is vital to bring awareness among the people to prevent such attacks. The web, visual aids, and classroom-based methods are being used by many companies for promoting and awareness training. Training is also given for the employees as to how to deal with and share confidential corporate data.

2. Geo-Targeted Phishing Threats

Phishing attacks are currently the most extensive security threat to the IT sector, with many still falling victim to phishing emails. Since cybercriminals use more advanced methods to create well-executed business email compromise attacks (BEC), phishing emails and malicious URLs remain prevalent on the web, except that they are now highly localized, more personalized, and are geo-targeted. Thus, businesses should start to adopt and invest in comprehensive security awareness programs.

3. Attacks on the Healthcare Sectors 

Data violations are the leading cybersecurity trend in the healthcare sector, it is costing organizations huge amounts of money. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, some of the health care organizations have relaxed their firewall rules for the benefit of their staff to work from home. Hence, health care organizations are giving more attention to security requirements such as HIPAA compliance for protecting health information.

4. Machine Learning

In cybersecurity, the role of machine learning (ML) is growing and has now become more proactive. With ML, cybersecurity becomes simpler, more effective, and, at the same time, less expensive. From a rich dataset, ML develops patterns and manipulates them with algorithms. This way, it can anticipate and respond to active attacks in real-time.

This technology heavily relies on rich and sophisticated data to produce effective algorithms. The data must come from everywhere and represent as many potential scenarios as possible. Implementing ML, thus, allows cybersecurity systems to analyze threat patterns and learn cybercriminals’ behaviors. These help to prevent similar attacks in the future and also reduces the amount of time needed for cybersecurity experts to perform routine tasks.

5. Cloud Security

There is a need to tighten cloud security as most of the cloud services do not provide secure encryption. If the configuration of the cloud security is poor, it can lead to cybercriminals. The predictive and innovative security in the cloud fights against cyber attacks. Predictive security pinpoints the attacks, it is useful to identify the dangers of the hackers. In the last three years, the predictive security cloud has earned a 261%ROI and predictive security is necessary for cloud services.

6. GDPR Compliance

The general data protection regulation, or GDPR, is one of the most significant developments in data privacy regulation across the European Union (EU) nations. But while the law has EU origins, any company that is marketing goods or services to EU residents needs to comply with the new regulation regardless of their location. Consequently, GDPR is having an immense impact on global data protection requirements.

GDPR imposes a uniform and consistent data security law on all EU nations. This eliminates the need for each member state to write their data protection law. GDPR, thus, provides more consistent protection of consumer and personal data of EU residents. Organizations around the world are gradually applying changes and restructuring to comply with the new law.

7. Financial Services Cyber Attacks

This is another area that is exposed to cyber threats. Certain financial institutions are still striving to keep up with the regulations and cloud migration. The financial actors are also affected by phishing attacks via social media sites and other messaging platforms. Apart from phishing attacks, financial organizations also face data breaches and malware attacks. Compared to other industries, financial systems are more inclined to cyberattacks costing them 18.3 million US dollars per company.

8. Threats to Higher Education

Cybersecurity is now among the top priorities of those in the higher education sector, especially with the rise of online learning and remote work in pandemic times. Cybersecurity trends in higher education primarily involve compromised student data. Just this year, three private universities fell victim to a cyberattack that involved the hacking of student admission data (Inside Higher Ed, 2019). This called the attention of those in the higher education sector to actively promote tighter security for the protection of student, faculty, and research data in the institution.

9. Vulnerability of IoT

Security issues keep plaguing most IoT devices dominating the market today. Computing devices embedded in IoT products allow for sending and receiving data over the Internet. This poses significant security threats to users, exposing them to cyberattacks like DoS or hijacked devices. As IoT connects the virtual space and the physical world, home intrusions are adding to the list of the scariest possible threats that IoT brings. As such, IoT devices are presenting vast opportunities for businesses and cybercriminals alike.

10. Mobile Devices as the Attack Vectors

Most of the e-commerce software and other platforms can be accessed using mobile platforms. Mobile users are being targeted by cybercriminals and they use mobile devices as attack vectors. Cybercriminals find mobile devices as an easy means to attack as mobile users are using the device for business and personal communication, shopping, hotel bookings, banking, etc. Cybercriminals are using mobile devices as popular attack vectors. There are more than 70% of fraudulent transactions occurring using mobile devices.