External Security Threats

External threats will remain a top consideration and Durbin predicts the threat will evolve as a result of the increasing sophistication of cybercrime, state-sponsored espionage, activism's shift online and attacks on systems that affect the physical world, including industrial control systems. The ISF predicts the following:

Cyber criminality will increase as the malspace matures. Organizations that commit cybercrime, espionage and other malevolent activity online have already achieved global scale and incredible sophistication and will continue to grow and develop in the coming years.

The cyber arms race will lead to a cyber cold war. Nations are already in the process of developing more sophisticated ways to attack via cyberspace and will improve their capabilities in the coming years. Nations that haven't already developed this capability will get programs under way. And businesses in the private sector shouldn't assume they'll be immune. The ISF predicts businesses will suffer collateral damage, especially as targets for espionage will include anyone whose intellectual property can turn a profit or confer an advantage.

More causes will come online and activists will become more active in cyberspace. The ISF predicts anyone who is not already using the Internet to advance their cause will start doing so over the next two years, including customer affinity groups, community associations, terrorists, dictators, political parties, urban gangs and more. All of them will find inspiration in the examples of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and Wikileaks.