Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 04 | Page 16

TRENDING IoT ATTACKS AND NEW EVASION TECHNIQUES EMERGING THREATS As 2016 approaches, Fortinet, and its threat research division, FortiGuard Labs, have made their annual predictions of the most significant trends in malware and network security going into 2016. A s in years past, the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud play heavily in the predictions, but new malicious tactics and strategies will create unique challenges for vendors and organisations alike. FortiGuard also predicts the emergence of increasingly sophisticated evasion techniques that will push the boundaries of detection and forensic investigation as hackers face increasing pressure from law enforcement. New Rules: The Evolving Threat Landscape in 2016 report is designed to reveal the new trends and strategies that FortiGuard researchers anticipate cyber criminals will employ in the year 16 INTELLIGENTCIO to come. Fortinet researched these predictions to arm our customers with the knowledge they need to maintain their advantage in the cyber security arms race and proactively change the way all businesses look at their security strategies going into the new year. that target trusted communication protocols between these devices. The top cyber security trends for 2016 include: FortiGuard researchers anticipate that IoT will become central to “land and expand” attacks in which hackers will take advantage of vulnerabilities in connected consumer devices to get a foothold within the corporate networks and hardware to which they connect. Increased M2M attacks and propagation between devices Several troublesome proofs of concept made headlines in 2015 demonstrating the vulnerability of IoT devices. In 2016, though, we expect to see further development of exploits and malware Worms and viruses designed to specifically attack IoT devices While worms and viruses have been costly and damaging in the past, the potential for harm when they can propagate among millions or billions of devices from wearables to medical www.intelligentcio.com