Booz Allen's newly released 2021 Cyber Threat Trends Outlook actually begins where it ends, with some watchwords on cybersecurity: “If you have something of value, the bear will always come after you. Be prepared." In more succinct terms: Going forward, expect cyber criminals emboldened by successful malware infiltrations to expand their opportunities to new attack surfaces.
The report details eight hot buttons where cyber crooks could level serious attacks. Those include next generation malware business models, supply chains, “intelligent” cyber crime, shipping services, contact tracing apps, telehealth adoption, 5G, mobile hotspots and others. The authors also suggest mitigation steps that operators can and should enact. In addition, Booz Allen offers its views on where cyber attackers will look to invade next.
Here’s a sampling of Booz Allen’s view of what is and what to expect:
On next generation malware business models.
Expect cyber criminals to “double down” on experimenting with ransomware business models and “professionalizing” the malware subset. “Cyber criminals have discussed, in open forums, proposals to create a venture capital organization or stock market of sorts, where interested parties can finance the development of malware, tools, and frameworks without ever writing a line of code.”
On supply chain attacks.
Expects threat actor interest in targeting platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions—particularly cloud-based development environments—to rise as a potential vector for conducting supply chain attacks. Attacks to compromise the PaaS provider “could allow threat actors a means of reaching a large collection of developers and even larger number of victims using those developers’ applications.”
On artificial intelligence and machine learning attacks.
Expect cyber attackers to target machine learning methods used by organizations. For example, threat actors will turn their sights on AI-enabled tools to “finalize malware payloads before use, similar to the sophisticated encoders, packers, and obfuscators used today.
On attacks at the parcel/shipping sector.
Expect cyber criminals to exploit the parcel and shipping sector to disrupt critical services, undermine public confidence in U.S. public sector services, or generally demoralize the population.
On COVID-19 tracing app ecosystem.
Expect COVID-19 tracing apps to be “backdoored” to collect data held on mobile devices, such as account credentials and other sensitive information.
On targeting health data.
Expect cyber criminals to take advantage of the “massive shift” to a remote delivery model owing to COVID-19 by exploiting telehealth services to target patient data. For example, devices that transmit essential data used in medical diagnoses could pose a significant risk for patients.
On 5G and industrial control systems.
Expect the merger of 5G networks and industrial control systems/operational technology to result in a compounded attack surface and expose underlying flaws in how industrial internet-of-things (IIOT) networks operate.
On 5G adoption.
5G availability will change the way people access the internet, drive more widespread adoption of mobile hotspots for internet access, and increase attacker incentives to find and exploit vulnerabilities in these devices.
