Vigilantes, tech giants and botched transformations threaten the digital marketplace

Information security professionals are facing increasingly complex threats—some new, others familiar but evolving.

By 2021, the world will be significantly digitised and connected. Competing in the digital marketplace will become increasingly difficult, as businesses develop new strategies which challenge existing regulatory frameworks and social norms, enabling threats to grow in speed and precision. Vulnerabilities in software and applications will be frequently disclosed online with ever-decreasing time to fix them.

Organisations will struggle when one or more of the big tech giants are broken up, plunging those reliant on their products and services into disarray. Organisations will rush to undertake overly ambitious digital transformations in a bid to stay relevant, leaving them less resilient and more vulnerable than ever.

Let’s take a quick look at a few of the threats on the horizon and what they mean for your organisation:

Digital vigilantes weaponize vulnerability disclosure

Vulnerability disclosure will evolve from a predominantly altruistic endeavour to one that actively damages organisations. Attackers will search for, and publicly disclose, vulnerabilities to undercut competitors and destroy corporate reputations. Fraudsters will manipulate financial markets by releasing exploits at opportune moments. A lack of regulation will lead to a culture of digital vigilantism whereby vulnerability disclosure is weaponised for commercial advantage.