Cyber Threat Intelligence

8Future Threats and Conclusion

Nobody has a crystal ball with which to view the future. Nevertheless, we can look at prior trends and extrapolate these moving forward into the near future to estimate what might happen. Any predictions regarding future technology are necessarily going to be made with medium confidence at best.

The very concept of cyber threat intelligence is relatively recent, and has changed rapidly over the past few years. The threats against computer systems, the nature of the systems themselves, and the tools at the disposal of cyber threat analysts are different today than they were 15 years ago, so we can envisage that these items will be different again in another 15 years' time.

As technology develops, new applications become apparent. New systems can be developed to support and improve our professional and personal lives. This new technology also provides new opportunities for threat actors to subvert these systems. In turn, cyber threat professionals are required to understand these new threats, understand the motivations and capabilities of threat actors, and to protect and mitigate against these. No matter what the future holds, there will be a need for threat intelligence professionals to understand the threat landscape and to brief decision makers.

8.1 Emerging Technologies

We can make broad predictions regarding the size, processing power, and cost of computer systems. Moore's Law, an observation that the density of transistors able to be placed ...