Welcome to 2018 in IT Security

The world has survived another circuit around the sun and it's time to look ahead to our upcoming orbit. What are we looking forward to (or dreading) in both security and Security Now for the coming year?

2017 was a big year for both -- IT security was frequently in the broad general media and Light Reading's Security Now launched as a standalone publication. In both cases the year just past offers some real hints about what to expect in the new year.

2018 in IT security
One of the biggest changes in IT security for 2017 was the definition's expansion to include social media and "news" hacking to change political and economic results. Chatbots were a frequently used tool for generating news stories, social media posts and comments to online articles and government requests for public comment. With mid-term elections scheduled for the US in November, the coming year will see more attempts to use computer-mediated and computer-created information to have an impact on events -- and increasingly frantic attempts by publishers, social network owners and government officials to block the bogus information.

Ransomware was the attack vector that caught everyone's attention in 2017 and it's unlikely to go away in 2018. The changing aspect of this unpleasant attack is that it's likely to be increasingly used as a smokescreen to divert attention from other, even more damaging, attacks. The worst aspect of that tactic is that the attacker has little incentive to actually do anything about restoring encrypted data even if a ransom is paid.

The early part of 2017 saw some significant DDoS attacks, though denial of service was knocked off the news by ransomware later in the year. DDoS hasn't gone away as a strategy and a combination of botnet tactics makes it likely that 2018 will see at least one attack that makes headlines for its size and level of collateral damage.

And then there are new attack vectors, including augmented reality and lateral movement from IoT control networks that seem promising technologies for hackers to use to cause mayhem. Add to these the likelihood that we haven't seen the last of the Vault 7 vulnerabilities and 2018 is going to be full of opportunities to talk about security and the lessons to be learned from victims.

2018 at Security Now
Here at Security Now we're going to have a regular series of webinars on security topics -- webinars in which we look at the technologies and tactics used by attackers, and the strategies you can use to defend against them. We're also bringing back the Voice of Security radio show and podcast. And there will be no shortage of the sort of news and analysis that you've come to expect from Security Now.

That's us -- what do you expect to see in security for 2018? Let us know -- the community here is a critical piece of the coverage that makes Security Now a valuable resource. Thank you for being part of Security Now; we hope you have a most happy (and secure) new year.

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— Curtis Franklin is the editor of SecurityNow.com. Follow him on Twitter @kg4gwa.