In 2015, hackers will evade arrest by framing the innocent

Fortinet, a network security firm, says that in 2015, advanced evasion techniques will evolve in order for cyber attackers to cover their tracks.
As cyber crime increases, law enforcement practices to catch and penalize perpetrators increase with it. Thus, hackers must be more careful and calculated to evade arrest, Fortinet said.
As the number of devices connected to the network increase, cyber criminals will continue to hone their prowess when it comes to Internet of Things (IoT) attacks and advanced evasion techniques, while also continuing to exploit large-scale server side vulnerabilities for financial gains and other nefarious purposes.
Fortinet pointed to a number of significant trends and cyber security threats from the perspective of a black hat hacker in 2015:
- Blastware to destroy systems, erase data and cover hacker tracks.
FortiGuard Labs said it first observed indications of Blastware in 2014, where the hackers had code routines built in, that if altered, would self-destruct and wipe out all information on the hard drive. This is a direct counter response to the rise of incident response services.
- Hackers look to evade law enforcement, frame the innocent.
Fortinet predicts that attackers will frame the innocent by throwing more red herrings into their attacks to thwart investigators and intentionally planting evidence that that point to an unassociated attacker.
- Internet of things becomes internet of threats (IoT).
Fortinet said that vulnerabilities that Black Hat hackers will look to exploit will include consumer home automation and security systems, as well as webcams. On the enterprise side, network attached storage and routers will continue to be targets.
- Denial of revenue/data breaches continue and expand.
Fortinet said that 2014 is become known as the “year of the data breach,” with significant thefts from stores like Home Depot. FortiGuard predicts this trend will continue in 2015 as hackers become more sophisticated and find new loopholes for infiltrating retail and financial systems.
“In the New Year, damages will also extend to denial of service on assembly line, factory, ERP/SAP systems, as well as healthcare and building management, creating even more challenges in the way of critical consumer data compromises, revenue losses and reputation damages for organizations globally,” it said.
- Rise in counter threat intelligence
As crime services extend their research and coverage, hackers will utilize the same type of processes for determining the best ways to bypass security systems. For example, current crime services scan malware against vendors’ capabilities to stop it, and give them a score result.
“As vendors expand from malware detection to threat intelligence correlation, criminals will work to counter this movement with the same type of approaches to find out if their botnet infrastructure is flagged in other intelligence systems as well, and work to hide their tracks,” Fortinet said.