Cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano predicts nation-state attacks and ransomware will surge in 2017, while breaches like Yahoo's stay hidden for years in sprawling networks. He recommends strong passwords rotated every six to twelve months, updated antivirus tools, and avoiding suspicious email links. The U.S. remains vulnerable because credit cards use chip-and-signature instead of chip-and-PIN.
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All right, cyber threats are alive and well, say nothing about hacking in elections here. But if you thought all this stuff was dramatic and big in 2016, which it was, my next guest says get ready for 2017, could put it to shame. To cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano on what we can look forward to, or not I guess, Robert, spell it out.
The threats are deep and wide. First of all, we have nation-states hacking US government files. You know, you see what happened to Dexter and others. You're gonna see more ransomware. Ransomware is when they encrypt your data on your own device and they hold your data for ransom and make you pay. We've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars of corporations and individuals pay ransom this year. The list just goes on and on.
You know, I'm curious, we're lately seeing a lot more examples of very dated hack attack confessions. In other words, yeah, we've been hacked. I think in Yahoo's case it happened a few years ago. I worry about that. We're being hacked right now, but we won't find out for, for many years. How does that happen?
Yeah, because many networks, you know, such as Yahoo's, for example, are again wide and deep, and because they're so vast and there are servers set up globally, it's possible that a criminal accesses a server, you know, somewhere, say, in South America, and the individuals responsible for that server aren't paying attention, and it's only discovered years later. So because networks are global, sometimes they just don't find out for years, and over that period of time is when a lot of damage is being done, and the victims don't know why.
I know I always ask you this, Rico, because I'm just wondering, like, how we can avoid this sort of thing, but it seems in this day and age where, you know, you are on a site or you are getting information from or to a site, you're fair game.
Yeah, so for individuals, you know, you and I, it begins with protecting your devices. Make sure that your own devices are properly protected with antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-phishing, and a firewall. Rarely, if ever, clicking links in the body of an email, because when you click a link in the body of an email, that can either download malicious software or you go to a website that is spoofed, which means you're giving up your credentials to a criminal. Password management is a really big one. Of course, not using easy-to-guess passwords, you know, 123456 or princess are not good passwords. Uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and characters.
And constantly changing it, right?
Well, you know, you should change them every 6 months to a year. You know, the Yahoo breach is a perfect example of why you should change your passwords. We didn't discover this breach for 3 years, so in that time frame, if you had the same password, that means a criminal probably We had it too.
Do you think that, or know whether the, the hack attacks that succeed in the United States are any more or any more widespread than they are abroad?
Yeah, I would say that we are a big target, certainly due to the fact that we have credit card numbers that can easily be copied and used because we're only just beginning to use chip and signature or chip and PIN, and then the Social Security number being a primary identifier where it's easy to open up a line of credit using a person's social, whereas in other parts of the world, their credit cards are much more secure due to the chip and PIN, and they don't use a primary identifier like a Social Security number that gives consumers easy access to credit.
All right, thank you, my friend, very much. Hope you have a Merry Christmas. Robert Siciliano.
