Expect to see more data breaches, attacks on critical infrastructure in the cloud, and more research into vulnerabilities into cloud computing in 2019, according to studies on upcoming threats in the new year.
With increasing adoption and more use cases, cloud computing offers organizations many benefits–but also becomes a bigger target for attackers.
The “Mapping the Future” report from cybersecurity firm Trend Micro suggests that 2019 will see more data breaches against organizations due to poorly configured cloud migrations.
“Transitioning on-premise or private cloud data to a cloud service provider can open up the enterprise to security risks unless the enterprise has a good handle on what exactly is happening to its data,” the report states. To counter this threat, the report suggests thorough understanding of access policies for cloud storage buckets.
As cloud continues to benefit other emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), it also opens up new vulnerabilities. In cybersecurity firm Forcepoint’s 2019 Cybersecurity Predictions Report, the company predicts more cyberattacks on industrial IoT devices.
“As control systems continue to evolve, they will be patched, maintained, and managed via cloud service providers. These cloud service providers rely on shared infrastructure, platforms, and applications in order to deliver scalable services to IoT systems. The underlying components of the infrastructure may not offer strong enough isolation for a multi-tenant architecture or multi-customer applications, which can lead to shared technology vulnerabilities,” said George Kamis, CTO for Global Governments and Critical Infrastructure at Forcepoint.
New vulnerabilities are also likely to emerge throughout 2019, according to the ‘Mapping the Future’ report.
“Cybercriminals will still go after easy pickings like account credentials to cloud assets in order to control databases. However, the research into cloud infrastructure weaknesses will not remain stagnant. As cloud adoption grows, we will see cloud infrastructure vulnerability research begin to gain ground,” the report states.