People are using more technology in their lives every day, and as good as that may sound, it also means that any data breach will be very expensive.
Those are the results of the latest Juniper research, which shows that the fast digitisation of consumers’ lives and enterprise records will increase the cost of data breaches to $2.1 trillion (£1.34 trillion) globally by 2019.
This means an almost four times increase in comparison to the estimated cost of breaches in 2015.
Even though Internet of Things (IoT) devices are the biggest bait for hackers, considering that it is a new technology which still needs to be mastered, the research says the majority of these breaches will come from existing IT and network infrastructure.
The research, called The Future of Cybercrime & Security: Financial & Corporate Threats & Mitigation, says new threats targeting mobile devices and the IoT (Internet of Things) are being reported at an increasing rate, but the number of infected devices is minimal in comparison to more traditional computing devices.
The report also highlights that the hackers are becoming more professional, with the emergence of cybercrime products (i.e. sale of malware creation software) over the past year.
Casual activist hacks are in a decline as well. Hacktivism has become more successful and less prolific – in the future, Juniper expects fewer attacks overall, but more successful ones.
“Currently, we aren’t seeing much dangerous mobile or IoT malware because it’s not profitable”, noted report author James Moar.
“The kind of threats we will see on these devices will be either ransomware, with consumers’ devices locked down until they pay the hackers to use their devices, or as part of botnets, where processing power is harnessed as part of a more lucrative hack.
“With the absence of a direct payout from IoT hacks, there is little motive for criminals to develop the required tools.”