Good News! Fighting Malware in 2019 Will Be Much Easier (Just Kidding … It Gets Way Harder)

Through 2018 the malware forecast looked good – Artificial Intelligence (AI) was being deployed against malicious threats and the outlook was becoming rosy…

Malware is not just a PC problem any more

Cyber Criminals will use both new and familiar weapons

During 2019 we expect the criminals to turn to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to make their threats more difficult to detect. As the good guys up their toolset, so do the criminals we fight/

During 2019 we expect the criminals to turn to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to make their threats more difficult to detect. As the good guys up their toolset, so do the criminals we fight:

• Newer variants of ransomware (including doxware, which will threatens to publish sensitive data like browsing histories unless a ransom is paid)
• Widespread use of cryptojacking (stealing computing resources to mine cryptocurrencies without permission or any sharing of the profits)
• More distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on critical servers and networks, reinforced by armies of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices
• Increasing use of fileless malware (which never becomes disk-resident, only loads directly into memory, and thus evades many signature-based endpoint anti-malware measures)
• More synergistic attacks (in which multiple malware attacks are injected onto a system and the poorest-defended one activated)
• Continued reliance on phishing as the most effective attack vector for malware, with more sophisticated attacks targeted at higher-value individuals and companies.

Now the good news:

You can combat these Cyber Criminals by:

1. Running your Updates for Both Operating System and Applications
2. Staying vigilant against Phishing and Spear-Phishing attempts
3. Running your backups and monitoring them to make sure they succeed.

You can place all the updates of these things in our hands – we offer managed antivirus, backup, patching and helpdesk to our managed services customers!