Community focused start-ups to improve communities have doubled, and now tripled in size, as well as in numbers. The cyber community has become forward focused, looking now at defining and regulating the profession of cyber security and encourage more people, young and old, into the sector.
We sat down with Tamzin Greenfield, a Cyber Security Apprentice at Cyber Security Associates, to get her future predictions for the tech space.
Tamzin is a passionate Cyber Security Apprentice and is on a mission to inspire confidence in the next generation of tech users. Over the last few years, Tamzin has seized every opportunity open to her – getting involved in the wider tech community, pursuing her formal education, and learning the ropes of the industry through full-time employment.
As a woman in STEM, Tamzin is motivated to encourage confidence in the next generation of tech users – from experts to every-day users which is why she co-founded Cheltenham BSides: a platform which provides the cyber security community in the Southwest with space to share knowledge and collaborate on innovative projects.
Throughout her apprenticeship, she’s spoken at multiple events regarding diversity and entry pathways, hosted by groups such as Women in Cyber Security, CyNam, the UK Cyber Security Council, and the NCSC. Through mentoring students, Tamzin has enjoyed witnessing the distinctly bold cohort that will lead the future of STEM and, as a keen volunteer is always looking for opportunities to support the local community and broader sector across England and beyond.
AS A YOUNG PERSON MYSELF, I’M ENDEARED BY THE WORK BEING DONE TO IMPROVE THE SAFETY OF THE TECH SPACE BY OLDER GENERATIONS.
With alternate pathways into cyber security such as Degree Apprenticeships becoming an increasingly popular choice amongst young people, it’s important that the tech sector is ready for the influx of new workers.
Speaking of the sector, it looks like we’re in for a rocky new year.
We enter 2023 in a time of great geo-political unrest, from the cost-of-living crisis here at home in the UK to the nation state level conflict with the Russia-Ukraine war. State level threats have been above most people’s payload, but it’s probably quite likely that any tools created for nation state disruption (particularly made to compromise critical infrastructure) will trickle down to impact all clients. As the cost-of-living crisis threatens only to get worse, and general life costs rise, finance-based threats, in particular, ransomware, are very likely to lead the charge in malware trends this year. Many other tech experts believe that we’re going to see a rise in file corruption, not encryption, so perhaps our security focus should move to data protection and backups as a response to this likelihood. It certainly makes sense, as purse strings tighten, companies will need a bigger incentive to pay the ransoms – and if these companies have been slacking on backing up their data, the threat actors have far more sway (and can ask for a lot more in their ransom!). As always, the best advice is not to pay the ransom and fund further criminal activity, so companies should be ahead of the game in preparing for ransomware attacks and not get caught out by thinking it won’t happen to them.
Speaking of companies, it looks as though we’re seeing a downsize in popular targets. Large companies, although attractive to threat actors, are more difficult to penetrate. Smaller or medium sized corporations are a far easier catch, especially using the quiet but dangerous method of botnet attacks. It is advisable for SMEs to put money and effort into their cyber risk strategies and work on building their resilience against cyber-attacks.
As for the everyday user, the number of devices and users online grows exponentially. In the head rush of anticipating the new year full of threats and malware galore, anyone with tech knowledge should remember to have patience with those who aren’t tech savvy. We might see scam emails and texts every day, and deal with far bigger problems than someone’s social media account being stolen, but there’s no point in poking fun or being unkind towards anyone who happens to be a target. It can certainly happen to any of us!
My personal concern for the coming year is the rise of deepfake images and what they mean for the credibility of news and content sharing online. The 2000s have been defined by a culture of images, and how people edit those images and what that does to people viewing those images. Deep faking, which has now become something almost everyone could access and use to create fake videos of whoever they wish, is hopefully soon to become illegal with changes to the Online Safety bill. It’s imperative that that both law makers and the general public are aware of digital manipulation tools and are aware of how the content we see online can be targeted to change our opinions about current topics or people.
