Encryption from the Future Perspective and Emerging Cyber Threats

Technology is moving at a rapid pace, and encryption systems must continue to evolve to keep up with advanced cybercrime. Encryption is essential in protecting trade secrets, identification data, financial transactions, sensitive personal information, and other forms of proprietary data that are stored digitally. A new era in information security will rely on new approaches to encryption—like post-quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution, and homomorphic encryption—alongside traditional mainstream cryptographic methods. These advanced methods will need to be put in place to ensure global information security.

The pandemic and remote work have reinforced our dependency on internet technology, and there is no looking back, as digitalization progress brings new risks to data with it. Hackers have gotten more proficient in their approach to gaining access to protected data. In this article, we'll look at the new threats to the digital environment, as well as upcoming encryption approaches.

Continued Rise of Ransomware

In ransom attacks, hackers take a company's data then encrypt it so they can't access it anymore. Cybercriminals will then blackmail the firm by threatening to reveal its confidential information unless a ransom is paid. In 2017, ransomware attacks grew considerably. However, in the current environment, the threat of ransomware is becoming much more serious as technology advances.

New Challenges from AI

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are becoming more revolutionary and capable. While AI provides a significant potential for organizations to improve their threat detection, the innovation and greater application of this technology have both positive and negative implications. Criminal networks are using AI to automate their attacks, and they're using strategies like data poisoning and model theft to do it.

Increase in Insider Threats

In the coming years, businesses will need to pay more attention to the prospect of insider threats and data theft by their own personnel. Inside threats must be treated seriously and viewed as a real concern by security officials, and critical questions about whether companies have the right tools in place to detect and stop them must be raised.

Remote and Cloud Attacks

Although cloud services have several advantages like flexibility, efficiency, and cost savings, they remain a prominent target for cybercriminals. Organizations will need to assess the security implications of cloud computing and identify any weaknesses in their present infrastructure.

User-Controlled Encryption

The first important future trend will be how user-controlled encryption—that is, systems in which consumers or end-users have complete control over the keys to encrypt and decode data—will be embraced across platforms and widely utilized applications, such as WhatsApp and Signal. The adoption of user-controlled encryption systems is one of the key things they're talking about in the context of “going dark”, and it's something that law enforcement is really interested in. User-controlled encryption will make accessing some data difficult or impossible for law enforcement. However, as the study points out, such encryption will not be employed everywhere since various users have different encryption demands and methodologies. The same may be said for service providers. Some clients want to know that their information will be safe even if their service provider is hacked encryption.

Quantum Cryptography

In the next few years, workstations that contain data that must be kept safe for lengthy periods of time after initial encryption will require post-quantum cryptography. Quantum computers are extremely difficult to construct. None has yet been constructed that can outperform a traditional computer, despite many attempts. But according to the article, quantum machines might become a reality within the next 10 to 20 years. Quantum cryptography, unlike mathematical encryption, employs quantum physics to convey secure data and is genuinely unhackable. Quantum cryptography is a quantum mechanics-based approach for safeguarding the distribution of symmetric encryption keys. Quantum key distribution is a more accurate term for it (QKD). The different QKD techniques are designed to ensure that any eavesdropper attempting to monitor the transmitted photons would cause the transmission to be disrupted.