Cyber attacks will grow in number in 2015

Cyber attacks will grow in number in 2015

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Cyber warfare 2015

2015 will see an increase in Cyber Warfare incidents.

McAfee Labs’ 2015 Threats Predictions report sees increased cyber-warfare and espionage, along with new strategies from hackers to hide their tracks and steal sensitive data.

“Cyber espionage attacks will continue to increase in frequency,” the report said. “Long-term players will become stealthier information gatherers, while newcomers will look for ways to steal money and disrupt their adversaries.”

McAfee said small nations and terror groups will become even more active and will “attack by launching crippling distributed denial of service attacks or using malware that wipes the master boot record to destroy their enemies’ networks.”

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At the same time, cybercriminals will use better methods to remain hidden on a victim’s network, to carry out long-term theft of data without being detected, the researchers said.

The report also said hackers are looking to target more connected devices, including computers in the farming, manufacturing, and health care sectors.

“The number and variety of devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) family is growing exponentially. In the consumer space, they are now seen in appliances, automobiles, home automation, and even light bulbs,” McAfee said.

McAfee said it is already seeing hackers targeting devices such as webcams with weak security and industrial control systems. But it sees health care as an especially worrisome sector.

McAfee says other threats will also grow, including “ransomware,” which locks down data and forces the victim to pay a ransom to retrieve it, and attacks on mobile phone operating systems.