Information technology is a lever that you can use to take your business processes to the next level. You can leverage the internet to improve communication. In addition, you can create a business website to sell your products online. On top of that, you can take advantage of specific software such as the customer relationship management (CRM) system to improve customer service and experience. All these technologies are essential to all businesses. However, with them comes cybersecurity challenges like hacking and ransomware attacks.

It’s advisable to institute robust cybersecurity measures to secure your business. You can use an in-house team or partner with a cybersecurity service provider. If you choose to partner with service providers, ensure that you hire tailored services suitable for your business needs. For instance, healthcare businesses need to consider HIPAA compliance services to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) federal law.

With that said, here are cybersecurity threats that you should watch out for in 2022:

Social Engineering

Social engineering is a top cybersecurity threat that most businesses are now facing. Surprisingly, it doesn’t use sophisticated technology tactics. Conversely, it makes use of social strategies against unsuspecting individuals. Here are three kinds of social engineering attacks that you need to be aware of:

Pretexting: It’s a strategy used by individuals who pose as employees from specific organizations. They can pretend to be from the human resource department and use the HR name when they know the name. They aim to obtain private information from employees, such as security numbers, addresses, and passwords. A perpetrator may use email, phone calls or texts, or other forms of communication.
Baiting: It’s a technique by hackers to leave a gadget somewhere where the target can easily find it. Then this gadget is used to create a security breach. On the internet, baiting is in the form of enticing advertisement ads and free downloads. Once you click on the ads, they can activate a virus into your computer and internet.
Phishing: It’s a common social engineering strategy whereby an attacker sends hundreds of emails to employees of a company seeking one to fall into their trap. They mainly demand credit card numbers and passwords personifying one of the colleagues. After seeing a suspicious email, verify whether it’s a company email through the email address.

New 5G Risks

It’s the newest technology in the market expected to improve network connectivity. Improved internet connection through 5G is expected to boost the growth of the Internet of Things which might be an avenue for more cybersecurity threats. Due to the many devices online, compromising them might be easier than before. As gadgets increase online, the bigger the chances of effecting a cybercrime.

Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware is expected to evolve in 2022, creating challenges to insecure networks. Modern ransomware will be more targeted and prominent. Due to its advancement, it’ll deploy complex methods of exfiltrating information to weaponize it.

Cybersecurity experts predict that cybercriminals will continue to take advantage of private area networks (VPNs), exposed RDP ports, and spear-phishing to carry out their attacks. Moreover, due to the surge in cloud migration, the cloud will be a big target by cybercriminals.

Criminals might broadly exploit less-secure environments like home internet powered by mobile phone hotspots to succeed in cloud attacks. Ransomware attacks aim to pressure victims to pay a ransom to withdraw an attack.

Besides gaining internet access through website breaches, attackers are now using cold calling or contacting business associates and customers of target organizations.

Supply Chain Attacks

It’s a new form of threat whose main targets are software developers and suppliers. These attacks aim to get a source code, update mechanisms, or build processes by corrupting legitimate applications to distribute malware. An example of a supply chain attack is the keylogger which is placed on a USB drive. This software can penetrate a company’s internet and record keyboard keystrokes to know passwords of particular accounts. You can prevent supply chain attacks by:

Implementing honeytokens
Implementing a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)
Restricting access to susceptible data
Identifying all possible internal threats
Adopting a secure privileged access management system
Instituting stringent shadow, IT rules.

Final Thoughts

From the current trend of cybercriminal attacks, it’s expected that incidents of cyberattacks will grow significantly. The success of such attacks is alarming. To that effect, every employer must develop a cybersecurity culture in their organizations. Partner with cybersecurity professionals and train your employees about possible threats, as highlighted in this article.