According to Wired Magazine, there are 6 key areas that will represent security threats in 2015:
- Nation-State Attacks
- According to the author of the article, Kim Zetter, national spy agencies that undermine encryption and install backdoors in systems remain the biggest security threat that computer users face in general. It’s hard to imagine that a national spy organization would waste their time with an individual or a small business owner and really pose a threat – but that’s what the author contends.
- Extortion
- Zetter believes we will continue to see more hackers extorting companies in 2015, like we saw with Sony in 2014.
- Data Destruction
- This is data destruction of the bad kind – and something that hasn’t been given much consideration. One of the security threats posed to businesses is the deletion of data by hackers. We are all about data destruction for devices that are no longer in use, but this type of data destruction could be devastating to any organization.
- Bank Card Breaches
- This has probably been the most newsworthy of security threats – bank card breaches that affect millions of consumers at one time. Many organizations are in the process of replacing old bank cards with newer ones that have better fraud protection chips to minimize security threats from hackers, but it will be a slow transition and costly to banks and retailers.
- Third Party Breaches
- A third party breach happens when a smaller company is hacked in order to gain access to a larger target…like the Target breach. The hackers gained access to Target through a heating and air conditioning vendor that did work for Target. According to the article, these type of security threats will likely increase in the future.
- Critical Infrastructure
- Security threats to critical infrastructure will probably come through third party breaches, in the same way that hackers were able to access Target. This just emphasizes the need for ALL companies, big and small, to be diligent about protecting against security threats.
It was an interesting article on potential security threats in 2015 – security threats that happen on the front end, while data containing devices are still in use. But business owners would be wise to pay attention to their policies and plans concerning data containing devices that are no longer in use, because these pose security threats as well.
If you are a business owner in need of a data destruction compliance plan and a way to shift liability for out of use data containing devices from your company to a professional in the area of data destruction – then call us today.