Cyber attacks are continuously increasing in numbers, becoming more varied more sophisticated, and more impactful. What Will Cybersecurity Look Like 10 Years From Now? According to Gil Shwed, Founder and CEO of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., the future of cybersecurity is tightly connected to the future of information technology and the advancements of the cyberspace. “Today, most of our critical systems are interconnected and driven by computers. In the future, this connection will be even tighter. More decisions will be automated. Our personal lives will be reliant on virtual assistants, and IoT connected devices will be part of almost every function of our daily lives. Connected cars will make our daily commute easier, and virtually all of our personal data will reside in cloud computing, where we don’t fully control the dataflow and access to information.”
In the coming ten years, nation sponsored organizations will continue to develop cyber-attack technologies for defense and offense; financially driven criminal groups will continue to seek ways to monetize cyber-attacks; hacktivists will continue to use cyber to convey their messages; terrorist groups will also shift to cyber space; and finally – people with no apparent motive, who seek to demonstrate their technical skills, will continue “contributing” to the attacker ecosystem, Gil further said.
“Another challenge we will encounter in cyber defense is that, unlike the physical world where we kind of know who our potential adversaries are and what “weapons” they use, in cyber space anyone could be our enemy. Last but not least, many cyber-attacks are run automatically by “bots” that scan the entire network and find the weakest spot, so we won’t need to look like an “attractive target”. We simply need to have a vulnerable point. Yes, we are all targets.”
Cyber security defense systems will need to become more sophisticated in order to cope with huge amounts of data. First, we will need to interconnect our defense systems to be able to act in real time. For example, our network gateway will need to share information with our personal devices. Second, the human analyst will not be able to cope with all this information and we will rely on more artificial intelligence to help us in making decisions.
“So overall, we will see systems that are smarter, sophisticated, able to handle large populations and large amounts of data, systems that can update themselves rapidly, that can take decisions in real time and that connect to shared-intelligence centers that will keep us guarded.”
What will be the state of digital security in five and 10 years? Will it be a “Wild West” where every person and organization must fight to protect their own personal data? Will the Internet of Things advance so much into our homes and cities that everyone – at all times – is under surveillance? Are sensors going to be smart enough to determine and predict human feelings – opening the door to cybercriminals hacking human emotion? These are scenarios from The University of California – Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, which has modeled what the Internet and cybersecurity could look like in 2020 and beyond.
Cybersecurity solutions that rely on AI can use existing data to handle new generations of malware and cybersecurity attacks. AI systems that directly handle threats on their own do so according to a standardized procedure or playbook. Rather than the variability (and ultimately inaccuracy) that comes with a human touch, AI systems don’t make mistakes in performing their function. As such, each threat is responded to in the most effective and proper way. Unfortunately, there will always be limits of AI, which is why Steve Grobman, CTO at McAfee states that human-machine teams will be key to solving increasingly complex cybersecurity challenges.
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