The Unrelenting Wave of Cyberattacks
"The scale and sophistication of cyber threats are accelerating faster than our ability to defend against them. Traditional security approaches are failing." - Sean Worthington
The internet current infrastructure is fragile and under constant assault. The sheer volume and sophistication of cyberattacks are growing, demonstrating that our existing security measures are no longer sufficient.
- Massive Data Breaches are the Norm: In the last two years alone, we have seen a string of catastrophic data breaches. The Change Healthcare ransomware attack disrupted healthcare services across the United States, and the 23andMe hack compromised the genetic data of millions. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a systemic problem. In 2025 alone, we have already seen breaches affecting major corporations and even the UK Ministry of Defence.
- The Economic Impact is Staggering: Cybercrime is predicted to cost the world $9.5 trillion in 2024, a figure that is expected to rise to $10.5 trillion by 2025. To put this in perspective, if cybercrime were a country, it would have the third-largest economy after the U.S. and China. This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history.
The Rise of AI-Weaponized Threats
Artificial intelligence is no longer just a tool for defense; it is now a weapon in the hands of our adversaries. AI is being used to create cyberattacks that are more personalized, more effective, and more difficult to detect.
- AI is Outsmarting Human Defenses: A recent study found that AI-generated phishing emails have a 54% click-through rate, compared to just 12% for those written by humans. This is because AI can craft highly convincing and personalized messages at a scale that is impossible for human attackers to replicate.
- A New Arms Race: Threat actors are using AI to create malware that can adapt and evolve to evade detection by traditional security tools. In fact, 87% of global organizations have already faced an AI-powered cyberattack. This has created a new arms race where our security engineers are constantly struggling to keep up with AI-driven threats.
The Looming Quantum Threat
The security of the entire internet is underpinned by encryption standards that are on the verge of becoming obsolete. The development of quantum computers poses an existential threat to our current cryptographic infrastructure.
- Harvest Now, Decrypt Later: Malicious actors are already capturing and storing encrypted data with the knowledge that they will be able to decrypt it once quantum computers are sufficiently powerful. This means that data we believe to be secure today is at risk of being exposed in the near future. This is a major threat to long-term data security for government, healthcare, and financial institutions.
- The End of an Era for Encryption: Quantum computers, using algorithms like Shor, will be able to break widely used public-key encryption standards like RSA and ECC. This would render much of the internet security infrastructure useless, including the protocols that protect everything from online banking to secure communications.
- A Race Against Time: The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is in a race to standardize post-quantum cryptography. In August 2024, they released the first set of these new standards. The fact that government bodies are actively working on a solution is a clear indicator of the severity and urgency of the quantum threat.