The Future of Cybersecurity
Introduction
The future of new technology and cybersecurity are firmly intertwined. Looking ahead at the next ten years is a difficult task, but one that cybersecurity practitioners need to engage in. Cybersecurity has long been a reactive field. Attackers find new vulnerabilities and security teams patch the hole. The Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will continue to grow. There is a huge race between the United States and China for supremacy in the 5G space. Big data and Artificial Intelligence will likely play a role in both cybersecurity and in cyber attacks.
Table 1. – New Technology Definitions (By the Author)
Internet of Things
IoT has quickly become a part of our everyday lives ("What Will Cybersecurity Look Like 10 Years From Now?", 2017). Devices like thermostats, refrigerators, garage door openers, and automobiles are all connected to the Internet. There is also the IIoT which is different than IoT in the fact that it focuses on connecting devices and machines for industrial uses. IIoT is used in industries such as energy, power, and healthcare (Gold, 2018). IoT and IIoT devices have been widely scrutinized for their lack of security. Devices have been hacked and used as entry points into networks or used in botnets (collection of infected computers used without the owners’ knowledge) to carry out illicit activities. The IoT market will only continue to grow in the future. Manufacturers of IoT and IIoT devices must start designing these devices with security in mind up front (Raguseo, 2017). In addition to the security issues with IoT devices, there is also the question of whether there will be enough bandwidth the accommodate all these devices and the mountains of data that they will generate. IoT has the power to make our everyday lives easier, but it must become more secure in the future in order to remain useful and relevant.
5G
Fifth-generation or 5G wireless, is the next generation of global telecommunications (Herman, 2018). It is also much more than that. 5G will revolutionize the way we connect. It has enough bandwidth to download a full-length movie in just a few seconds. Chart 1 below shows a comparison between older technologies of 3G, 4G, 4G LTE and 5G.
Chart 1. – Wireless Technology Comparison (By the Author)
This is the type of bandwidth that will be needed to power the ever-growing IoT. The United States and China are currently in a race to control the 5G market, and China has a head start. The cost to build out the fiber-optic network and maintain it will be tens of billions of dollars. China is offering to build these networks at bargain prices. This tactic is already working as ten countries have already agreed to deals with Chinese tech company Huawei to use their 5G gear. These countries include Italy, Mexico, Portugal, UK, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia. Huawei is a well-known company and notorious for having close ties to the Chinese military and intelligence agencies. The fact that Huawei will control how data moves on the 5G network in these other countries is troubling. There is narrow distinction between controlling how data moves and controlling what data moves and to whom. The United States and Australia have banned using Huawei. It is now time for the U.S. to engage the domestic telecom industry and build out a plan for an affordable 5G network that does not rely on Chinese technology.
Big Data and Artificial Intelligence
There are massive volumes of information being collected from all the connected devices. Much of this information is being used already in targeted advertising. Think about online shopping. Information is collected on you and then used to put advertisements on new web pages you visit and send you emails with new offers. This isn’t magic, it is big data. Think about the last time you got into your car and your phone notified you how long it was going to take you to get to your destination, and because it was Friday, it knew you were going to the coffee shop before work. You phone knows this because it collects data on you every day and sends it to the cloud to be analyzed. It knows that you typically go straight to work Monday through Thursday but like to treat yourself to coffee on Friday. This is great but what are some practical uses for big data? We are fighting cyber threats right now using humans against computers or bots (Gil, 2018). The future will see a shift in cybersecurity to use big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to fight computer against computer with humans in cybersecurity managing the data and helping AI to learn and predict new threats before they happen. There is a currently a shortage of workers in the cybersecurity field. This gap will continue to grow, and it is estimated that by 2022, there will be 3 million vacant cybersecurity jobs ("The Future of Cybersecurity: Artificial Intelligence", 2018). AI is the answer to bridge this gap.
Conclusion
Our world will continue to evolve into a more connected society in the next 10 years. As a nation, we must understand the risks that come with this and move to a more proactive security stance. We must do this by staying ahead of our adversaries and leveraging new technology like 5G, big data, artificial intelligence, and IoT devices to automate many security functions ("The Future of Cybersecurity: Artificial Intelligence", 2018). Security needs to become a feature that we demand in our technology products. Automobiles come equipped with safety belts, air bags, automatic braking systems and many other safety features. In the future we will look for these same types of protections in connected devices. The future is full of opportunity for cybersecurity to grow and leverage new technology to serve a connected world.
References
Gil, L. (2018). The Debate is Over: Artificial Intelligence is the Future for Cybersecurity | SC Media. Retrieved from https://www.scmagazine.com/home/opinions/blogs/executive-insight/the-debate-is-over-artificial-intelligence-is-the-future-for-cybersecurity/
Gold, J. (2018). What is the Industrial IoT? [And why the stakes are so high]. Retrieved from https://www.networkworld.com/article/3243928/internet-of-things/what-is-the-industrial-iot-and-why-the-stakes-are-so-high.html
Herman, A. (2018). The War For The World's 5G Future. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/10/17/the-war-for-the-worlds-5g-future/#3e1dad201fe5
Raguseo, D. (2017). The Future of Cybersecurity. Retrieved from https://securityintelligence.com/the-future-of-cybersecurity/
The Future of Cybersecurity: Artificial Intelligence. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.cioreview.com/news/the-future-of-cybersecurity-artificial-intelligence-nid-26476-cid-145.html
What Will Cybersecurity Look Like 10 Years From Now?. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/14/what-will-cybersecurity-look-like-10-years-from-now/#5f22a07b6e6e
Great article Jason. I also agree that AI and Machine Learning will play a very big rule in the upcoming 5G and Fog computing time. There is just simply too much data generated by the edge devices, even though with 5G network the speed may no longer be a problem, it's still inefficient to send all the data to the cloud for analysis, and there need to be security concerns here too. The trend might be analyzing and processing data on the edge and then send the digested data to the cloud for aggregation and deep analysis. This brings in the Fog computing. This will especially help the IoT scenario.
Interesting how AI jumps into the mix with such a large throughput of data and the notion of big data being so widely sought after these days. AI will certainly have a large role to play in parsing through this data appropriately, and will likely open us up to additional security holes through its own actions. The more we press into the space of AI, the less predictable the outcome of certain actions will become - at least to the consumer - causing some room for concern in the cyber security space.
Alex, the U.S. must take quick action to prevent the domestic telecom providers from using Chinese hardware.
Great article, Jason. I think the use of the graphic displaying speed difference in cellular service is incredibly valuable. This graphic truly demonstrates the monumental change that 5G will be bringing to the table for the industry.