Part Three
THE modern definition of the word “hack” was first coined at MIT in April 1955. The first known mention of computer (phone) hacking occurred in a 1963 issue of The Tech. Over the past 50-plus years, the world’s attack surface has evolved from phone systems to so many digitally connected “things” that it’s outpacing effort to properly secure them.
The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented in 1989. The first-ever web site went live in 1991. Today there are more than 1.9 billion web sites.
The world’s digital content is expected to grow to 96 zettabytes by 2020, up from 4 billion terabytes (4 zettabytes) just three years ago. With this kind of exponential growth the opportunities for innovationand for cyber crime are incalculable because data is the building block of the digitized economy.
The far corners of the Deep Web—known as the Dark Web—is intentionally hidden and used to conceal and promote heinous criminal activities. Some estimates put the size of the Deep Web (which is not indexed or accessible by search engines) at as much as 5,000 times larger than the surface web, and growing at a rate that defies quantification, according to one report.
According to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), by 2022, more IP traffic will cross global networks than in all prior “Internet years.” In other words, more traffic will be created in 2022 than in the 32 years since the Internet started. However, increased connectivity brings with it increased security challenges.
Driven by the rapid increase in the use of cloud apps, cloud data center traffic will represent 95 percent of total data center traffic by 2021, according to Cisco. The growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as smart cars, smart cities and connected health devices, will also expand data center demands.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that the total amount of data stored in the cloud—which includes public clouds operated by vendors and social media companies (think AWS, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), government-owned clouds that are accessible to citizens and businesses, and private clouds owned by mid-to-large-sized corporations—will be 100 times greater in 2022 than it is today.
Despite promises from biometrics and facial recognition developers of a future with no more passwords—which may, in fact, come to pass at one point in the far-out future—one report finds that the world will need to cyber protect 300 billion passwords globally by 2020.
The global smartphone total is set to grow 50 percent in the next four years to 6 billion devices, up from 4 billion in 2016. Infections for both Android and iPhones continue to increase as they are now the largest threat vector on the planet for technology. And 2019 will see this trend continue.
Research from Cisco and Cybersecurity Ventures indicates that smartphones will account for more than 55 percent of total IP traffic by 2025, and Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for nearly 80 percent of traffic IP by that time—with BYOD (bring your own device) and mobile apps posing a major security threat to enterprises over the next six years.
The number of connected devices on the Internet will exceed 50 billion by 2020, according to Cisco. To put it another way, the number of IoT devices will be three times as high as the global population by 2021. And by 2022, 1 trillion networked sensors will be embedded in the world around us, with up to 45 trillion in 20 years.
Human attack surface
Like street crime, which historically grew in relation to population growth, we are witnessing a similar evolution of cybercrime. It’s not just about more sophisticated weaponry; it’s as much about the growing number of human targets.
To be continued