Cyber threats, fake news expected to rise in 2018

New cyber threats, including the prevalence of fake news, are expected to arise in 2018 as the world becomes more interconnected and digitial, according to Trend Micro Inc., a cybersecurity expert.

In a report titled “Paradigm Shifts: Trend Micro Security Predictions for 2018,” Trend Micro forecasts the prevalence of digital extortion, business email compromise, and fake news among others.

Losses from business email compromise are expected to widen with an increase in digital extortion activities.

“In today’s increasingly interconnected environments, users and enterprises in the Philippines stand as vulnerable as the rest of the world to different forms of cybercrime,” said Myla Pilao, director for technology marketing at Trend Micro.

Digital extortion will define most cybercriminals’ business model and pave the way for new schemes. Vulnerabilities in IoT devices such as drones, wearables, and medical devices will expand the attackers’ ground, it said.

Losses from Business Email Compromise (BEC) will exceed $9 billion next year, the company said in the report.

Trend Micro said fake news would continue and would provide threats to enterprises as competitors may resort to such ways to damage the reputation of rival companies.

Machine learning and blockchain technologies, meanwhile, are likely to bring benefits, as well as pitfalls to enterprises. Machine learning, in particular, can enhance security solutions, but comes with blind spots that cybercriminals will exploit at an increased rate.

“The threat landscape is constantly evolving and shifting with the emergence of new technologies. The expected prevalence and rise in cybercrime in 2018 only illustrates the importance of investing in security,” Pilao said.

To address such threats, Pilao said enterprises and users alike would have to take a multilayered approach.

“Enterprises and users must have a connected threat defense – from the email and web gateway to the endpoint – to ensure maximum protection against the constantly evolving threats,” Pilao said.

Trend Micro is a global leader in cyber security solutions. It provides consumers, businesses, and governments with layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints.

All its products work together to seamlessly share threat intelligence and provide a connected threat defense with centralized visibility and control, enabling better, faster protection. It has more than 5,000 employees in over 50 countries worldwide.