Information Security Forum: Nine Cybersecurity Threats Organizations can Expect Through 2022

The Information Security Forum (ISF) has released Threat Horizon 2022, the latest in a series of annual Threat Horizon reports. Threat Horizon 2022 highlights nine major threats, broken down into three themes, that organizations can expect to face over the next two years as a result of increasing developments in technology. 

Threat Horizon 2022 focuses on particularly difficult cybersecurity challenges in a way that is relevant to senior business managers, information security professionals and other key organizational stakeholders. The three key themes in the latest report include:

Theme 1 – Invasive Technology Disrupts the Everyday: New technologies will further invade every element of daily life with sensors, cameras and other devices embedded in homes, offices, factories and public spaces. A constant stream of data will flow between the digital and physical worlds, with attacks on the digital world directly impacting the physical and creating dire consequences for privacy, well-being and personal safety.

Major threats:

• 1.1 Augmented attacks distort reality.
• 1.2 Behavioral analytics trigger a consumer backlash
• 1.3 Robo-helpers help themselves to data

Theme 2 – Neglected Infrastructure Cripples Operations: The technical infrastructure upon which organizations rely will face threats from a growing number of sources: man-made, natural, accidental and malicious. In a world where constant connectivity and real-time processing is vital to doing business, even brief periods of downtime will have severe consequences. It is not just the availability of information and services that will be compromised – opportunistic attackers will find new ways to exploit vulnerable infrastructure, steal or manipulate critical data and cripple operations.

Major threats:

• 2.1 Edge computing pushed security to the brink
• 2.2 Extreme weather wreaks havoc on infrastructure
• 2.3 The Inter of Forgotten Things bites back

Theme 3 – A Crisis of Trust Undermines Digital Business: Bonds of trust will break down as emerging technologies and the next generation of employee’s tarnish brand reputations, compromise the integrity of information and cause financial damage. Those that lack transparency, place trust in the wrong people and controls, and use technology in unethical ways will be publicly condemned. This crisis of trust between organizations, employees, investors and customers will undermine organizations’ ability to conduct digital business.

Major threats:

• 3.1 Deepfakes tell true lies
• 3.2 The digital generation become the scammer’s dream
• 3.3 Activists expose digital ethics abuse

Security Magazine spoke to Steve Durbin, managing director of the Information Security Forum, about the threats we can expect now and over the next two years.

Security magazine: How will the coronavirus impact these threats and organizations in the next year? Could healthcare organizations be expected to enforce tighter cybersecurity measures as a result of the increase of attacks on their networks during this time?

Durbin: The Threat Horizon is unique in that it is the only annual report that looks forward two years to predict the threat landscape whilst rigorously reviewing the past three years of predictions. In this way the reader is provided not only with a degree of confidence in the threats, and more importantly the mitigating actions to combat such threats, but also with an update on the veracity and accuracy of the predictions.  Before studying the predicted threats, the ISF encourages the security or business professional to assess the forecasts in the context of their own organization.  Every organization will have its own view, its own risk appetite and will have its own approach to risk assessment.  The real value of the Threat Horizon is not just in the threats but in the discussion it promotes across the organization of its ability to deal with the unexpected and to ensure that business resilience is developed and maintained.