Current Cyber Security Threats and Future Challenges

Nation-State Threat Actors and Disinformation

Abstract

The cybersecurity environment is constantly deteriorating partly due to the extraordinary speed of technological development, which increases the number and frequency of exploitable vulnerabilities i.e., the size of the “attack surface” in cyber space. However, nation-state threat actors that pose the most serious challenge are trying to make the most out of the deteriorating and unpredictable cyber security environment. Based on leading industry and cyber security reports, the present paper seeks to summarise the key developments of 2021 and the first half of 2022, focusing primarily on the leading nation-state threat actors. Without wishing to be exhaustive, this paper describes the cyber activities observed during the examined period which deemed attributable to the leading malicious nation-state actors – including hacker groups in Russia and China. In addition, it tries to draw attention to today’s cyber security threats and the challenges ahead – such as the ever faster spread of disinformation – but all this without engaging in a deeper analysis, unnecessarily.