Bots try to break the internet, and other trends for 2019

From the largest DDoS attacks ever seen and record-breaking numbers of data breaches, to the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May, 2018 will be remembered as an extraordinary year for the cybersecurity industry. 

With hackers developing increasingly sophisticated ways to attack enterprises every day, one of the most important lessons from this year is how crucial it is to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals at all times. In order to continuously protect company and customer data, businesses need to have an understanding of not only cybersecurity threats now, but also in the far future.  

Although no one can say for certain what 2019 will bring, we can look to the past to understand the trends of tomorrow. As technology has evolved, it’s been accompanied by smarter, more malicious and much harder to detect threats. With the ever-increasing intelligence of bots, the increasing complexity of clouds and rising IoT risks, as well as the impact of data regulations, cybersecurity will dominate boardroom conversations. 

• Keep your devices protected from the latest cyber threats with the best antivirus
• Browse public Wi-Fi securely with the best VPN
• This is everything you need to know about GDPR

With this in mind, here are eight trends that will make the year ahead as turbulent as the one just passed:

Cyber-attacks will grow – and go slow 

Organisations will see an increase in cyberattacks but these will be “low and slow”, rather than “noisy” incidents such as DDoS attacks. Launched by botnets, “low and slow” attacks aim to remain under the radar for as long as possible, to steal as much data as they can. 

Often these take the form of credential stuffing attacks, where stolen credentials are used to access associated accounts and steal further personal data such as addresses and payment details. 

To protect themselves, businesses will need to adopt bot management solutions, which identify, categorise and respond to different bot types. The technology uses behaviour-based bot detection and continuous threat analysis to distinguish people from bots. 

Bots will overtake human web traffic 

As bots become more sophisticated, they will be responsible for more than 50% of web traffic. Already, Akamai has found that43% of all login attemptscome from malicious botnets – and this is set to increase as credential stuffing and “low and slow” attacks grow in popularity. 

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