2015 was a year of record data breaches, driving home the risks faced by both enterprise and Government as bad actors continue to up the security risk ante.

That said the year past was marked by a strategic shift from a maniacal focus on prevention, toward greater balance on monitoring, detection, and response capabilities, Amit Yoran, President of RSA (the Security Division of EMC) explained in his preamble to the latest in SiliconANGLE’s 2016 predictions series.

“What was considered an ‘advanced’ threat in years past has become a commodity today, with sophisticated malware and exploits available for the price of a movie ticket,” Yoran noted. “As troublesome as these observations seem, the most impactful evolution goes almost entirely unreported and misunderstood.”

“The threats that matter most, today’s pervasive threat actors are now conducting attack campaigns comprised of multiple exploit methods and multiple backdoors to assure persistence. Incomplete incident scoping has become a critical and consistent mistake made by security teams.”

Yoran’s predictions for 2016 as follow.

Strategic Data Manipulation and Disruption

Yoran believes that organizations will begin to realize that not only is their data being accessed inappropriately, but that it is being tampered with.

“Data drives decision making for people and computer systems. When that data is unknowingly manipulated, those decisions will be made based on false data. Consider the potentially devastating consequences of misrepresented data on the mixing of compounds, control systems, and manufacturing processes.”

Increasing Attacks on Application Service Providers

The continued adaptation of “as a service” offerings will see many companies place most of their sensitive applications and data in the cloud, resulting in increasing attacks on application service providers, Yoran predicts.

“The aggregation of this valuable data from many companies creates an incredibly lucrative target for cybercriminals and cyber espionage. A deeper appreciation of third party risk is needed.”

Hacktivism and the Attack Surface

Yoran believes that as cyber-attack tools and services become increasingly commoditized, along with the cost of attacking an organization dropping dramatically, more attacks that do not have financial gain as the primary focus will come to the fore.

“Sophisticated hacktivist collectives like Anonymous have been joined by relatively unsophisticated cyber vigilantes. Organizations need to realize that financial gain is no longer the only or even the biggest driver of some of their adversaries. Security operations and risk managers should evolve their understanding not only of the threat, but also of what, why, where, and how they are being targeted.”

Industrial Control Systems pushed to the Breaking Point

Over the last three years intrusions into systems that control operations in the chemical, electrical, water, and transport sectors have increased 17-fold, an area that Yoran believes will continue to be an increasing target.

“The advent of connected and automated sensors aggressively exacerbates these issues. The growth in the use of cyber technology for terrorism, hacktivists and other actors, combined with the weakness of  Industrial Control System security generally, combined with the potential impact of bringing down a power facility or water treatment plant (hello, California), makes the critical breach of an ICS in 2016 extremely concerning and increasingly likely.”

Shake-out of the Security Industry

Yoran believes change is ahead for the industry in 2016 after a period of unprecedented growth.

“Our industry has been awash in venture capital and as a result, foolish investments have been made in strategies and technologies that are little more than snake oil. As organizations’ security programs continue to mature, they are learning that claims of being able to prevent advanced threat breaches are nothing more than fantasy. Expect to see a shake-out in the security industry as organizations maturing understanding of advanced threats increasingly drives their security investment decisions.”

Image credit: RSA/ YouTube.