Geopolitical security issues have come to the fore in 2015 as Government’s worldwide have rallied against encryption as the rise of The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and similar Islamic terrorist groups have caused ever growing concern.

Terror-driven attacks lead security firm Zscaler, Inc.’s Chief Information Security Officer Michael Sutton predictions for the year ahead, along with a showdown over encryption and attackers targeting personally identifiable information.

In the latest in our 2016 predictions series Sutton’s forecast as follows.

Terrorists target critical infrastructure

Sutton says that this prediction is one that saddens him to write, but feels is inevitable and one that can’t be ignored.

“Terror organizations are continually searching for new avenues to instill fear and they require significant funding to further their hateful agendas,” he notes, while adding that “skilled hackers can aid on both fronts.”

“Cyber attacks can clearly be used by terrorists to obtain intelligence for future attacks and we’re already seeing early signs of cyber attacks being used to cause physical damage through targeting critical infrastructure.”

“Last year, hackers caused significant damage to a German steel mill when they disabled systems responsible for controlling a blast furnace. This wasn’t just kids playing around either, as the attacks reportedly required substantial knowledge of industrial control systems in order to succeed.”

“With almost all industries reliant on computerized systems, the potential attack surface for critical infrastructure is enormous. Hacking is also extremely lucrative and sadly, terrorists won’t necessarily need to acquire the necessary skills themselves as there are no shortage of cyber criminals all too willing to rent their skills out to the highest bidder and look the other way.”

The encryption showdown

Encrypted communications have long been an issue of law enforcement and those in the intelligence communities, something we’ve seen much of this year as Government’s even went as far as calling for encryption to be banned.

Sutton notes that at the same time as Government has rallied against it, privacy concerns have mounted, thanks in part to the Edward Snowden revelations, and that leveraging strong encryption for messaging and data storage is no longer the realm of geek speak.

“It is an expected and differentiating feature. iOS now encrypts data by default and Android while lagging behind, is fighting to get there. Popular chat applications like WhatsApp tout encryption as a key feature and Apple’s iMessage app, which features end-to-end encryption and no central key store, is often referenced by law enforcement when arguing for a ‘backdoor’.”

“2016 will be the year this battle comes to a head. While politicians used to dance gingerly around the topic given the privacy abuses exposed by the Snowden revelations, recent terrorist attacks have brought this issue front and center.”

“Multiple pieces of legislation are sure to be introduced that will propose weakened encryption protocols or procedures to grant law enforcement access to decrypted communications as needed. Weakening encryption to benefit law enforcement will also reduce security for everyone and if the US government mandates a ‘backdoor’, you can be rest assured that China, Russia, [pick a country] will be demanding the same for their citizens. This is one battle that will have serious repercussions for years to come. Here’s to hoping that Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the like manage to prevail.”

Personally identifiable information is the new hotness

2015 was a huge year for data breaches affecting millions with credit card theft, but Sutton believes that this trend will accelerate in the year ahead.

“In the coming year, expect attackers to move away from targeting financial information and instead target personally identifiable information (PII),” Sutton predicts.

“The quest for PII is being driven by two separate groups of attackers. While nation states desire PII for espionage, criminals are also shifting to PII as it is generally more valuable than credit and debit cards, which are getting more challenging to harvest in bulk due to greater awareness of the problem and new technology.”

“PII is highly sought after in the underground as it can be leveraged to commit financial fraud such as applying for credit, filing false medical/insurance claims or fraudulent tax refunds. Whereas credit cards can be easily canceled, changing one’s name, address and social security number generally isn’t an option, so the stolen data remains valuable for a longer period of time. In 2016, attackers will increasingly target sectors known to store bulk PII including finance, healthcare and government entities to harvest valuable PII.”

Android finally cleans up its act

Despite increasing Apple App Store infections, Sutton believes that Android is well on its way to becoming the Windows of the mobile malware world and is the only serious game in town when it comes to infected tablets and smartphones.

“Love it or hate it, Apple’s walled garden and refusal to allow downloads from third party app stores has paid security dividends,” Sutton says. “Sure, Google Play has Bouncer and he’s done a fine job of keeping the miscreants out, but that’s of limited value when users are willing to go to shady Chinese app stores to save a buck on Candy Crush.”

“Google clearly knows that this will hurt them in the long run, and while they are taking steps to increase security, they need to be much more aggressive going forward:

• Crack down on third party app stores
• Take more drastic steps and restrict the permissions available to apps not vetted through the Google Play submission process
• Expect side-loaded apps requesting Administrator permissions to become a thing of the past
• Mandate acceptable timeframes for patches and firmware upgrades from Android licensees

Some developers and partners will push back, but Google will have little choice if they want to get malware under control. These steps won’t eliminate Android malware, especially with Android’s slow O/S upgrade cycle, but they will raise the bar for third party app stores, just as Bouncer did for Google Play.”

Image credit: 24874528@N04/Flickr/CC by 2.0