Digital lives in danger: How cyber attacks are evolving
Hostile cyber threats are escalating in frequency and severity, and threaten to undermine our civil and commercial institutions, along with our individual lives. Attackers continually seek new means of intrusion, and their modus operandi have evolved over time.
The very first generation of cyber attacks, in the 1980’s, used computer viruses to target personal computers. These attacks could be stopped with anti-virus software. In the 1990’s, the second generation of threats cropped up, centering around internet connected networks. These attacks could be thwarted with firewalls. The early 2000s saw the proliferation of attacks that exploited vulnerabilities. This third generation of attacks could be stopped with Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). Zero-day threats emerged around 2010, representing the fourth generation of attacks. Security companies developed behavioral analysis tools to contend with these threats.
“Fifth generation attacks exploited the connected and device-driven world we live in today, since our data is dispersed on the many different platforms we all use,” says Gil Shwed, Founder and CEO of Check Point Software Technologies.
And sixth generation attacks are just emerging. These attacks will require security mechanisms with artificial intelligence (AI), which will enable us to protect the millions of IoT devices that are proliferating in the world around us. However, despite the evolution in sophistication, most of the world only has security that prevents second and third generation attacks.
“The bottom line is that the more connected we all become – the more vulnerable we all become. Our information, which is shared on all of these connected devices, will need higher levels of protection,”