Cybercrime brings a lot of problems to ordinary users, but also creates new jobs. According to the forecast of Cybersecurity Ventures, in the next four years, 3.5 million new jobs will appear in the information security sector (3.5 times more open vacancies than at present).

The information security industry is experiencing a real boom. For example, in the USA, the number of open vacancies in information security for 2015-2017 increased from 209 thousand to 350 thousand, that is, by 67%. Similar processes are underway in Russia and other countries: information security is on the rise. In 2017, companies around the world spent $ 86.4 billion on information security ( Gartner statistics ).

But the coin has two sides. Such statistics do not mean that networks will become more secure and secure. Maybe vice versa. The information security industry is trying to defend itself against new and new threats. The number of hackers, cybercrimes, malware, espionage, hacking and data leaks - all this is growing much faster than the number of “defenders” from the information security sector. Not to mention the fact that the technical qualifications of “black” (black-hat) hackers often exceed the qualifications of those information security experts who studied computer literacy at the university. Hackers creatively use new technologies and constantly come up with new attack vectors.

What problems will information security experts face in the near future? What to prepare for?

GlobalSign introduced a list Five issues and trends of information security that can be expected in 2018.

1. The evolution of crypto ransomware

Crypto ransomware (ransomware) and is now one of the fastest growing areas of cybercrime. The number of attacks in 2017 increased by 36% (and the damage doubled). Experts do not predict a decrease in intensity, there will only be more attacks.

Unfortunately, many companies still do not provide for the development of events according to the worst-case scenario. In 20% of companies do not have a recovery plan , that is, they do not do a backup. In the event of infection, they will lose all their data, applications, customer information, etc. They will actually have one way out - to pay the attackers and hope that they provide the keys to decrypt the information.

2. The expansion of AI to protect against attacks

Specialists consider the use of programs with elements of data mining and self-training, that is, applications of weak Artificial Intelligence, as one of the most promising protection strategies.

Statista has compiled a table with the most promising AI applications in the coming years. “Prospect” in this case is determined by the volume of investments that companies have already made and plan to make in one or another field of AI in 2016-2025.



The total amount of private investment in all areas of weak AI is estimated at $ 48.5 billion. The most promising areas are the recognition of static images, the classification and labeling of objects, algorithmic trading, and data mining in healthcare. But the list also included such a direction as “preventing cyber security threats”. According to the forecast, $ 2.47 billion will be spent on the development of such systems. A considerable amount.

Traditionally, specialists from information security departments reacted to attacks after the fact. New generation automatic systems will be able to analyze traffic and logs in real time: theoretically, malware should be blocked even when they are downloaded to the server.

Of course, it will not do without human participation: here the AI ​​system is only an auxiliary tool. Its effectiveness depends on the qualifications of specialists who configure the system, monitor its work and analyze the results.

3. Threats to the Internet of Things

The number of gadgets in the possession of people is constantly and rapidly growing, and not only among geeks. Almost in every apartment several smartphones and tablets, one or several computers, a TV connected to the Internet or a television set-top box (streaming media device on the diagram) are constantly working.


The number of Internet-connected devices in American homes. Pew Research Center statistics from a survey for September-November 2016

And this is only the beginning. Nowadays, voice assistants with speech recognition like Amazon Echo and Google Home are becoming fashionable. So far they don’t understand the Russian language, but as soon as Yandex launches its smart column, they will also become fashionable with us ( Yandex has been working on this gadget for a year and a half) Such a device can order pizza or call a taxi at your command, put music on demand or tell news and weather forecasts.

Even refrigerators become “smart” - and can order fresh milk if it expires .

The problem is that IoT devices are generally less secure against hacking than regular computers. A few years ago, an HP study found that 70% of IoT devices have serious security vulnerabilities . Since then, the situation has not changed too much.

4. Blockchain revolution

Despite the recent depreciation, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have become the main event of 2017.

Blockchain - a decentralized and secure transaction recording - can be used in various fields of information technology. What does this mean for information security? Experts cannot yet clearly answer this question, but make some assumptions. Most likely, private companies will begin to use blockchain to store their transactions - and combine these systems with existing information security solutions. For example, these may be decentralized access control and user identity management systems. Maybe other applications will come up. In any case, information security systems are likely to change using the blockchain.

5. Vulnerabilities in serverless applications

Experts believe that confidential information is at greatest risk if it is not stored on a server, but on users' personal computers. Servers are usually better protected than serverless applications.

According to Statista , the most typical options for using serverless applications are as follows:

Web services - 65%
Data processing - 34%
Internet tools - 28%
Internet of things - 23%
Chat bots - 23%
Other - 33%

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Cybercriminals are becoming more resourceful and quick-witted every year. This means that IS specialists cannot relax in any way - they constantly have to develop new defense mechanisms in this endless struggle. In 2018, experts predict the emergence of new cryptocommunity, attacks on the infrastructure of the Internet of things and serverless applications, the use of AI systems and blockchain in the field of cybersecurity. Let's see how these forecasts come true.

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