Cybersecurity Trends of 2022

There’s no other way to put it—2021 has been a rough year for cybersecurity. We saw attacks on big businesses like Acer, JBS, and plenty more. Some of these breaches have even resulted in far-reaching consequences, like the fuel shortages that hit the East Coast after the Colonial Pipeline attack. 

Since the start of the pandemic, digital transformation has accelerated to the point where we now exist in a hyperconnected and agile business landscape. As a result, there’s a greater surface area for cybercriminals to attack than ever before. Cybersecurity should be a top priority for all businesses. As a precaution against cybercrime, it’s recommended that your organization invest in outsourced cybersecurity services.

To punctuate the end of a challenging cybersecurity year, researchers discovered a significant zero-day exploit in December that has been dubbed Log4Shell. While many of us have become desensitized to hearing about such vulnerabilities after this year, this is a threat that can’t be ignored. Forget about the top cybersecurity breaches of the year—analysts are claiming this is the worst internet hack in history. 

The vulnerability stems from an exploit found in Log4j 2, a popular Java logging library used in most servers. By entering a certain string of text, a hacker can gain full control over a server without using a password. Since the software is almost ubiquitously used, this presents an unprecedented level of risk. Every server that uses Log4j 2 is going to need a patch.

Although companies have begun the patching process, the exploit has already been weaponized by cybercriminals. It’s possible we could see more ransomware incidents in the near future because of this exploit. If you want to learn the best practices to protect against ransomware, check out one of our recent blogs.