Its dull forecast in the African and global cybersecurity sector as Kaspersky researchers predict a growth frequency and sophistication of cyber threats in 2020.

Going forward, the experts predict that threats will not only become more targeted, they are also likely to diversify under the influence of external factors, such as development and propagation of machine learning as well as abuse of personal information.

The firm’s Global Research and Analysis Team says that over 2019 highlight that there is likely to be abuse of personal information owing to the number of personal details available made it easier for attackers to perform targeted attacks, based on victims leaked info.

This, the experts predict, will see the threat actors dive deeper, hunting for more sensitive leaks, such as biometric data.

Abuse of personal information is also likely to be heightened by technologies which could lure victims of personal data abuse in the attackers’ traps such as  publicly discussed video and audio Deep Fakes that can be automated and support profiling and creation of scams and social engineering schemes. This could be reflected in aspects such as blackmail.

Further, threats are also likely to be manifested as threat actors threaten to publish data that they have stolen from the victim company.

As banks will be required to open their infrastructure and data to third parties who wish to provide services to bank customers, it is likely that attackers will seek to abuse these new mechanisms with new fraudulent schemes.

Vicente Diaz, security researcher at Kaspersky said that the future holds so many possibilities that there are likely to be things that are not included in their predictions.

"The extent and complexity of the environments in which attacks play out offer so many possibilities. In addition, no single threat research team has complete visibility of the operations of APT threat actors. We will continue to try and anticipate the activities of APT groups and understand the methods they employ, while providing insights into their campaigns and the impact they have,” he said.

The firm earlier this year said that they detected 105 million attacks on Internet of Things devices coming from 276,000 unique IP addresses in the first six months of the year.

This figure is around nine times more than the number found in H1 2018, when only around 12 million attacks were spotted originating from 69,000 IP addresses.

Capitalizing on weak security of IoT products, cybercriminals are intensifying their attempts to create and monetise IoT botnets.

Cyberattacks on IoT devices are booming, as even though more and more people and organisations are purchasing ‘smart’ (network-connected and interactive) devices, such as routers or DVR security cameras, not everybody considers them worth protecting.

Speaking to The New Times Earlier this year, Eugene Kaspersky, the founder of the world-renowned Kaspersky Lab, a multinational cybersecurity said that increased economic growth increases the chances of attacks and vulnerability.

"That is why cybersecurity capacities are important to develop, you need more engineers here to develop resources to protect yourselves,” he said. 

editor@newtimesrwanda.com