The intensity of cybersecurity attacks and threats is gradually increasing, making it more challenging for security admins and security conferences to stay ahead of the cat-and-mouse game between defenders and attackers.

With each passing year, cybercriminals have been getting creative, smarter and quickly adopting technology in order to carry out cybersecurity threats and attacks innovatively. 

In fact, the intensity of cybersecurity attacks and threats is also gradually increasing, making it more challenging for security admins and security conferences to stay ahead of the cat-and-mouse game between defenders and attackers. 

In order to do this, enterprises need to be informed about the latest cyber threats today. Here are the 5 Cybersecurity Threats to Watch Out for in 2020 and some of the most worrisome cyber threats today. 

1. AI As a Hacking Tool

It turns out that AI or artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword. Enterprises are trying to take advantage of the AI technology in order to protect their infrastructure, however, hackers, at the same time, are also equipping themselves with new ways to exploit their systems with the same technology. And what once believed as an excellent defense against hacker turns out to be a part of an emerging cyber security trend in 2020 and another worrisome cybersecurity threat. 

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Cybercriminals have started developing advanced attacks utilizing AI to compromise business defenses. For once, phishing emails generated by AI are way more deadly than those generated by humans. Such emails are developed with current security solutions in mind, capable of bypassing your spam filters and other gateway solutions, so it lands up straight into your mailbox. Hackers can even develop super realistic “deep fake” audio and video to fool people. 

Another worrisome risk of this technology is that cybercriminals can infiltrate datasets that are used to train AI models. For example, they can inject malicious code and change the labels so that the threats are marked as safe instead of malicious. IT is even possible for hackers to identify the algorithm used by the AI defense system and can develop an AI-based counter-model in order to bypass it. 

2. Insecure Biometric Data

Last year, biometrics, used to authenticate identity, has become a top priority for enterprises and banks. However, several incidents of biometric data leakage have also been observed globally. 

One example is the leaking of India’s national ID database, affecting the biometric data of 1.1 billion registered users. Using this compromised confidential data, attackers can attempt next level scams such as fake e-commerce transactions, forging fake identities for financial frauds, or any use of biometric data in order to carry out malicious activities. 

3. Mobile Malware 

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, they also become the favorite target of cybercriminals, wits statistics of mobile attacks getting higher for the rest of the year and to the next. 

Cybercriminals are creating new ways and tools to spy on iOS and Android devices with banking Trojans being the most prominent threat for mobile devices last year, growing by 150%.

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Attackers gain access to devices through social engineering access as well as physical access in order to secretly spy and steal information. Additionally, several fake apps made their to the Google Play store as well as to end user’s mobile. And this trend of fake apps seen as popular brands on app stores is one of the most worrisome threats expected to grow further this year and beyond. 

4. Sophisticated Supply Chain Attacks

This year, cybercriminals are also focusing on attacking crucial software supply-chain infrastructure in order to conduct more extensive attacks. Cybercriminals began recognizing the advantage of supply chain attacks due to the NotPetya campaign in 2017, rapidly spreading in order to wipe data from computers around the world. 

In 2018, a notable amount of supply-chain targeted attacks that involve enterprises such as Delta Airlines and Best Buy are seen. 

5. Attacks in the Cloud

Cybercriminals have also found a way to use cloud services in order to mask their identities while carrying cyberattacks. They have been abusing and exploiting popular cloud-based services such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Google Drive and Dropbox to fool their victims. 

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They can see these services in order to distribute malicious code and spread macro-laden spreadsheets and documents or using them as control and command servers. Cybercriminals are also using cheap cloud services to host an entire DDoS and brute-force system, targeting users and other cloud providers. 

Author Bio:

Maxwell Donovan works for a Conference organization. His prime errand is to discover the correct group of spectators for the conference and different business occasions. These conference and occasions are basically held at top meeting settings in India. .