Get Off of My Cloud: McAfee Releases Data Security Predictions for 2017

Nowadays, it's more than just your computer that is susceptible to hacking. In this age of the Internet of Things (IoT), pretty much anything connected to the cloud is at risk: smartphones, televisions, baby monitors, home security systems, even (gasp!) printers. (Remember when swastikas started shooting out of college printers back in March?)

Although these connected products are incredibly beneficial, innovation does not come without a cost.

A new report on cyber threats by McAfee Labs highlights what some of those risks might be to IoT and cloud security. The report makes 21 predictions regarding IoT security threats, legal actions and vendor responses in the next four years.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the report cites predictions of greater interest in attacking the cloud in 2017, and IoT devices will be used as gateways to data and intellectual property theft. As more people put their trust in the cloud, more sensitive data passes through it; but a lot of IoT devices on the market today have little to no security.

However, the report also forecasts a collaboration among the cyber security industry to harden products against digital threats. We expect print manufacturers and data management companies will be part of this discussion.

As Intel Security’s McAfee Labs VP Vincent Weafer notes in a press release,

To overcome the designs of our adversaries, we need to go beyond understanding the threat landscape to changing the defender-attacker dynamics in six key areas: information asymmetry, making attacks more expensive, improving visibility, better identifying exploitation of legitimacy, improving protection for decentralized data, and detecting and protecting in agentless environments.

That goes for print professionals too. In an October 2016 article on PIworld.com, we discussed how cloud-based solutions are gaining traction in the printing industry and the risks associated with this trend:

There are legitimate concerns in placing your information, and ostensibly, that of your client, into a third-party provider’s hands. After all, you are accountable (and legally on the hook) for your customer’s information.

The fears and threat of hacking are always a possibility — perhaps now more than ever — so investing in data protection should be top priority for printing companies everywhere.