A malicious software called WannaCry it wreaked havoc on companies around the world in 2017 after infecting and blocking tens of thousands of computers. It is estimated that the damage caused by this ransomware system has reached four billion dollars.
That being one of the biggest and worst (in terms of impact) computer attacks ever could, very soon, have a kind of sequel. This was one of the conclusions presented by the cybersecurity company Kaspersky in the annual forecast report for 2023.
“Statistically, these attacks happen every six, seven years. vulnerabilities
like EternalBlue (which enabled WannaCry) are rare. The reason we make this prediction is because the most sophisticated groups of hackers have at least one of these (guarded) vulnerabilities”, underlines David Emm, an analyst at Kaspersky.
According to the technology, the geopolitical tension that is currently experienced can lead to direct attacks between groups of computer hackers and make the details of vulnerabilities emerge for the general public, which would open the door to an attack on a scale similar to WannaCry.
But there's more. Kaspersky also predicts a significant increase in the number of destructive attacks. These are attacks whose main objective is, only and only, to cause damage – if possible, irreparable damage – to the targets.
But what is perhaps Kaspersky's most 'out of the box' prediction for 2023 are computer attacks against satellites. More specifically, the company is convinced that “attacks on technologies, products and satellite operators will increase”.
