Before we begin to forecast what new trends in cyber security will evolve in 2017, we must first look at the major pivots we witnessed in 2016. There are two critical events from 2016 that will continue to shake things up across all major industries-including healthcare--that must adhere to some measure of compliance. The general theme for 2017 is how do we simplify and consolidate technology and automate resolutions of cyber security breaches.

 

In 2016, industries across the board experienced one of the most aggressive and destructive cybercrime campaigns to date--Ransomware. Ransomware was first sent to nearly half a million victims on February 16th, 2016. It came in the form of a word document with a malicious macro. Victims were sent the infected document via an email masked as an invoice requiring payment. It changed the wallpaper on their computer to instructions on what to do next. All of their files were converted into Locky Files, which are inaccessible encrypted files. To access the files required paying a "ransom" to the hackers. Once the ransom was paid, the encryption key was released for victims to retrieve their files.