2017 in Tech: The Year of Foreshadowing Big Things to Come

2017 may be the year that developments in the tech world truly were overshadowed by other world events: deepening divisions in the United States and the looming threat of war with North Korea; numerous high-profile Hollywood players, TV personalities, politicians, journalists, business executives and others involved in sexual misconduct scandals; terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere; and the announcement of yet another royal wedding in the United Kingdom, to name just a few.

With all of that going on, it would be easy to overlook Apple's introduction of another iPhone or Nintendo's comeback with a hit video game console. The truth is that 2017 could be what sports teams often call "a rebuilding year."

Security Researchers prove that Windows 10 Facial Recognition can be breached with a Photo

Their spoofing attempts were declared on the cybersecurity site Seclists on Dec. 18. The cybersecurity experts bypassed Windows Hello which is Microsoft’s password-free security Lock on both a Dell and Microsoft laptop operating different versions of Windows 10, which is the reason for concern for anyone utilizing this feature to log into their account.

Bitcoin ‘Phishing’ Attacks On The Rise As Price Goes Higher And Higher

After Bitcoin’s price goes higher and higher and has climbed from $11,000 on Monday to almost $17,500 on Sunday, phishing attacks on Bitcoin wallets increased, according to CheckPhish, which is a service that keeps track of new phishing pages against popular companies.

According to CheckPhish reports, five domains have been recognized which were attempting to mask themselves as the Blockchain wallet service. Similar bitcoin phishing activity has been reported by others.

IT Security Spending to Reach $96 Billion in 2018: Gartner

Gartner is predicting that worldwide security spend will reach $96 billion dollars in 2018. This is up 8% from the 2017 spend of $89 billion. Interestingly, the latest 2017 and 2018 figures show substantial increases over similar predictions made in August of this year. The earlier prediction has 2017 figures at $86.4 billion with 2018 figures at $93 billion.

Russia, India and other Asian countries targeted by Chinese Hackers

According to the Kaspersky Lab's third quarter report, 10 out of the 24 targeted cyber attacks were organized by groups of Chinese speaking hackers. 

Experts at Kaspersky said one of the main targets of these cyber criminals was Russian Federation.  They also have targeted other Asian countries which includes India, Mongolia.