And in the past twelve months, the word “ransomware” has popped up in countless headlines worldwide across both print and digital publications. Ransomware which was originally intended to target individuals has become a corporate cyberattack tool. The actual number of ransomware attacks is
estimated to be about 184 million globally.
Securelist, an annual report from cybersecurity expert Kaspersky makes an annual list of how they see the world of cybersecurity shifting.
It predicted the rise of trojans, ransomware, attacks on finance establishments and increase in privacy breaches using technology as early as 2014. Two years ago, Securelist was already talking about privacy violations on different platforms and the ransomware landscape was their first story in 2019.
The security analysts also declared 2021 as the year or ransomware. And in the past twelve months, the word “ransomware” has popped up in countless headlines worldwide across both print and digital publications. Ransomware which was originally intended to target individuals has become a corporate cyberattack tool. The actual number of ransomware attacks is estimated to be about 184 million globally.
In early 2021 also did a deep dig into the illegal extraction of private data and the two major consequences of (willing and unwilling) sharing personal data in public–doxing and the selling of personal data on the Dark Web–and try to untangle the connection between the two.
For 2021, Securelist focuses on privacy, data collection, and how the pandemic not only forced a more cyber hygienic lifestyle for many netizens it also forced businesses to take a key role in protecting personal data.
1. BigTech will give people more tools to control their privacy — to an extent. Privacy regulations are becoming stricter and laws are being created to overcome the power of technology, giving users more tools. For example in Europe there are more options for users logging into an app allowing access without necessary divulging information.
Securelist says companies will have no choice but to comply with stricter and more diverse privacy regulations worldwide. The caveat? Do not expect privacy by default. Securelist predicts that even when legally obliged to provide privacy by default, enterprises whose bottom line depends on data collection will continue to find loopholes to trick people into choosing less private settings.
2. Governments are wary of the growing big tech power and data hoarding, which will lead to conflicts–and compromises. With governments building their own digital infrastructures to allow both simpler and wider access to government services and, hopefully, more transparency and accountability, as well as deeper insights into the population and more control over it, it is not surprising they will show more interest in the data about their citizens that flows through big commercial ecosystems. This will lead to more regulation, such as privacy laws, data localization laws and more regulation on what data and when are accessible to law enforcement.
3. The move for machine-unlearning will rise. Privacy has often been affected by how machines (bots and computer algorithms) store and utilize personal data. Modern machine learning often entails training huge neural networks with astounding numbers of parameters (while this is not entirely correct, one can think of these parameters as neurons in the brain), sometimes on the order of billions.
Thanks to this, neural networks not only learn simple relationships, but also memorize entire chunks of data, which can lead to leaks of private data and copyrighted materials, or recitations of social biases. This is why Securelist predicts more interesting developments, both in technologies that prevent memorization (such as differentially private training) and those that enable researchers to remove data from already trained systems (machine unlearning).
4. Consumers and regulators will demand more algorithmic transparency. Complicated algorithms, such as machine learning, are increasingly used to make decisions about us in various situations, from credit scoring to face recognition to advertising. This may lead to frustrating experiences and discrimination. Computers are programmed to determine an inferior customer based on gathered information. Or, if you are denied a credit card? A mortgage? A kidney transplant? As more industries are touched by algorithms, we expect more discussion and regulations about explaining, contesting and amending decisions made by automated systems, as well as more research into machine learning “explainability” techniques.
5. Finally, remote working is the thank for additional privacy awareness. Thanks to WFH, many people will become more privacy-aware — with the help of their employers. Virtual desktop infrastructure, remote access, one-time password, two-factor authentication have moved from buzzword to daily lingo. It is expected that even when the pandemic is over, the work-from-home culture might persist. With people using the same devices both for work and personal needs, corporate security services would need more security-minded users to protect this bigger perimeter from attacks and leaks. This means more security and privacy trainings — and more people translating these work skills, such as using 2FA, into their personal lives.
To conclude, privacy is no longer a topic for geeks and lawyers. After a barrage of stolen data, scare from “haveibeenpwned.com” the level of public debate online safety and security, privacy and business ethics has increased. As this public consciousness increases so will transparency, accountability, the balanced use of personal data.
