The Cybercrime Spike
IOT
“It ’ s unlikely that levels of cybercrime will be drastically reduced over the next couple of years ”
ADAM PHILPOTT SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT , MCAFEE ENTERPRISE
The Cybercrime Spike
15 % Annual growth in cybercrime “ cost ”
$ 10.5trn Cost of cybercrime in 2025
500 %
Increase in ransomware attacks since March 2020
43 % Increase in paid ransom sizes in Q4 2020 could work from home between three and five days a week , is highly unlikely - Philpott says that “ it ’ s unlikely that levels of cybercrime will be drastically reduced over the next couple of years .”
As much as the shift to remote work has turned the past year into one long nightmare for cybersecurity teams , Philpott says that a hybrid world will be even more dangerous . “ The main difficulty with hybrid working from a cybersecurity perspective is that compared to either fully remote or full on-prem , IT teams are having to simultaneously manage security risks that occur both in and out of the office ,” he says . “ As a result , the workforce is exposed to a larger number of threats and IT teams ’ workloads are subsequently increased .”
Keller agrees that “ The hybrid network has also dramatically increased the attack surface of a company . Where traditionally we had very tight control over the networks ’ ingress and egress points , we now have thousands of points .”
The Solution ? There are a number of different approaches that companies can supposedly use to tackle this radically more dangerous threat landscape . The ones that will be successful ( this state of affairs , even in Philpott ’ s most optimistic projection , isn ’ t going away for another couple of years , remember ?) are those that attack the problem from multiple angles .
Keller explains that , while the threat of IoT is not in the device but in the ease in which they can be procured and added to the network , many IoT devices are “ plug and play ”, which means they often end up as endpoints to secure systems while still using default passwords and security configurations . “ For me , there is
120 September 2021