4 Biggest Cybersecurity Crises of 2021
It’s 2021, and the world is changing faster than ever before. From self-driving cars that cut across cities like flying bridges or gigantic Pac-Man ghosts—to cruise liners that can cross oceans without human input—to Google’s floating Internet balloons casting an invisible web of connectivity overhead…it’s surprising how much has changed in just five short years. The Earth spins at 1,000 miles per hour; Mars whips around the sun at 52,000 mph every year, and our data zooms across millions of miles of fiber optic cable each day. And it all runs on software written by humans who are both extremely brilliant and extremely lucky.
With the start of a new year, we like to take some time and look into the future and offer predictions on what cybersecurity issues we think will be most critical. This year we share our top list for 2021:
1 – A major ransomware worm sweeps across corporate networks which encrypt files with advanced military-grade encryption algorithms. The hackers demand 10 Bitcoin per machine as ransom, payable within 72 hours. In order to decrypt their files, all affected companies must decide whether or not it’s worthwhile to pay up.
2 – Government agency-sponsored malware shuts down strategic infrastructure around the world including electricity grids, transportation systems, and financial institutions. While efforts are made to fight back against this threat, a second wave is unleashed causing even more disruption and destruction across the globe.
3 – The 2020 US presidential election is attacked by nation-state hackers who release troves of embarrassing or incriminating emails from certain candidates in an attempt to sway public opinion and/or change voter opinions before the election results are made official.
4 – A fresh wave of ransomware targets elderly users by using animated pop-up windows and easily decrypted files that make it appear like a file recovery software has successfully completed and offers payment options similar to other ransomware schemes (such as Bitpay). Unfortunately, the small print says users must pay more for this service than traditional ransomware which gets around paying up altogether due to how old their victims tend to be.
5 – The rise of a new quantum computing system has greatly accelerated processing speeds and unprecedented levels of raw, brute-force power. This allows nation states to more successfully break encryption schemes previously thought to be mathematically unbreakable.
6- A worldwide cyberwar between the United States and China leads to the bombing of several Chinese data centers with ballistic missiles by US military forces, in an effort to weaken their enemies’ ability to launch further attacks. Chinese hackers retaliate by bombing several US data centers with similar missile strikes (by infecting supply chain logistics), crippling America’s Internet infrastructure temporarily, in an attempt to stop attacks on China. According to vpntesitng.com (https://vpntesting.com/best-vpn/travel), even Internet is not accessible for US foreigners unless you use a special purpose VPN.
7 – The release of WikiLeaks cables by Edward Snowden in 2021 show that FBI informants had joined chat rooms used by suspected terrorists so they could lead would-be jihadis down “the path of violence” by the “narrative” the US government wanted.
8 – Major cloud providers decide to migrate critical data belonging to their top 5 customers exclusively onto quantum drive systems in order to disrupt competitors’ market shares including Amazon, Google, IBM, Oracle and others. Yes, this means that all your sensitive data is now under the control of just a few large conglomerates instead of a decentralized grid which distributes encrypted shards across millions of drives owned by individual users spread out all across the world on various devices. And good luck finding a place with quantum-safe connectivity if you want access to your files from another country!
9 – Several politicians running for president in the US are accused of student debt fraud on social media. By cross-referencing their campaign finance data with university records, it is revealed that they never attended college but still received student loans which they used to fund lavish lifestyles instead of paying off debts (which of course were later discharged via bankruptcy).
10 – News of a major earthquake hitting Tokyo leads to fears of radiation leaks at the Fukushima power plant facility. However, cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services quickly provide radiation detector data at no extra cost which citizens can use to check whether radiation levels are within safe limits (and yes, people actually start using this for some reason). Unfortunately, hackers get into these devices and release false readings shortly after an initial tsunami warning goes out, leading to mass hysteria about an impending nuclear meltdown.
11 – A new social media platform called “Alphazoo” gains in popularity by offering users free, ad-free access in exchange for personal data.
Summary
As the world becomes more and more interconnected, we expect more and more problems to cross international borders — or at least cause havoc across continents. We also expect an increased focus on the impact regular people will feel from cyberattacks in 2021: Ransomware is already a regular news story, but it’s likely that these schemes will get even more advanced (and target larger groups of people) over the next 5 years; there may not be any effective countermeasures for such an attack, either (and this goes beyond paying up).
And finally, we see problems like election tampering getting worse before they get better — especially as tensions continue between countries with different political views and/or power structures. There will always be actors who want to take advantage of complex issues like our election systems just to score some points or make a name for themselves.
Of course, these are all just predictions, and we don’t expect them to come true in just five years. But if they do, it’ll be one hell of a cyberpunk future. These may sound like worst-case scenarios, but the truth is that threats to security are only growing in scope and sophistication; keeping yourself (and your company) safe has never been more important than it is now…but hopefully, this list will let you remain vigilant against anything bad happening in 2021 or beyond.