
We also expect investment fraud, BEC and CEO fraud to continue to cause disruptive losses and also a significant increase in mobile malware.
COSMIC FORESIGHT PROFESSIONAL
This will continue to be supported by a professional underground economy that provides the necessary tools and services. As is evidenced by several high-profile ransomware attacks, this has created a global cybersecurity risk that goes beyond the financial impact of these attacks. Ransomware will continue to dominate and proliferate with cybercriminals further moving toward a more calculated target selection. Philip Amann, Head of Strategy at the European Cybercrime Center) The efficacy of hitting MSPs was proven out in 2021, and even small, regional MSPs will need to stay on their toes with patches and two-factor authentication everywhere to avoid getting exploited and phished by attackers who are targeting their downstream customers.Īs cryptocurrency valuations continue to separate themselves from any realistic evidence of value, we will see more and more exchanges and clearinghouses get compromised, resulting in heists of millions of dollars' worth of crypto - especially among off-shore exchanges. In 2022, managed service providers (MSPs) will continue to be in the hot seat as intermediary targets for ransomware gangs. Tod Beardsley, Director of Research at Rapid7 But I think my prediction is that we are going to see the pendulum swing back from tools that do one thing well to large suites/integrated platforms that do all kinds of things, so the whole buying landscape is going to get even more murky and confusing.

COSMIC FORESIGHT SERIES
There's still going to be insane venture funding rounds (like Transmit Security's Series A) for security startups. I think we will see some surprising consolidation - some giant merger that's going to dwarf even the ones we've seen so far.

In other words, pirates will be coopted into privateers. Governments will notice the successful actors in their countries, and rather than shut them down, they'll seek to co-opt their activities. My third eye tells me that ransomware will become state-sponsored. Here's a look at what those in the know - some of them under the guise of clever fortune-teller names - think we'll be talking about in the year to come.

In keeping with our yearly tradition, we sat down with some experts at Rapid7 and across the industry to get their 2022 cybersecurity predictions. Many (most?) of the questions we thought in 2021 that we'd have answered by this point - chief among them, when will COVID finally leave us alone? - still seem to elude us. As we walk through the doorway of 2022, it's hard not to wish at least some among us had the gift of cosmic foresight.
