In the latest Threat Intelligence 2017 Predictions Report, NSFOCUS has seen an increasingly unstable internet. A number of factors are contributing to the instability, including large-scale unrest and protest as well as the rise and fall of government power and control, and will likely result in an increase in DDoS attacks through DDoS for hire and DDoS extortion campaigns.
NSFOCUS has pointed to an increasingly unstable Internet in its latest Threat Intelligence 2017 Predictions Report. Co-author and Chief Research Intelligence Analyst, Stephen Gates points to a number of factors, including global financial instability, worldwide refugee migrations, large-scale social unrest and protest, in addition to the rise and fall of government power and control, will likely be the catalysts that rock the Internet in 2017 and beyond.
“The instability of the Internet in 2017 means we will see increased DDoS attacks with criminals and protesters taking advantage of the Internet of Things (IoT), and looking to profit from DDoS for hire and DDoS extortion campaigns,” said Stephen Gates, Chief Research Intelligence Analyst at NSFOCUS. “We will see these botnets wreak havoc on a global scale like never before in 2017.”
He also warned that organisations do not have to be the direct target of a DDoS attack to experience collateral damage - pointing to the largest DDoS attack on record that occurred in 2016 that impacted many organisations that were not a direct target of the attack.
Other threats include the rise of ransomware for hire as cybercriminals organise themselves and get business savvy, using marketing and SEO tactics to further their success in online extortion, as well as more sophisticated insider threats and the death of anti-virus.