The mass introduction of QR codes, ransomware attacks, blocking and discussion around the regulation of social networks – this is what 2021 is remembered for.
Researchers state that the situation with Internet freedom around the world is deteriorating. Cybercriminals are improving attack tools and are becoming an increasing threat to both ordinary users and companies and even states due to the rapid digitalization of life and the dependence of many aspects of it on online.
Cryplogger analyzed the main events and trends of 2021 related to human rights in the digital world, cybersecurity and privacy.
- Internet freedom at the global level declined for the 11th year in a row.
- Experts talk about the end of the era of self-regulation of social networks – the authorities are developing more and more norms to control their work.
- Restrictions and tools for tracking citizens imposed against the backdrop of the pandemic have hardly been curtailed. And we are unlikely to see this in the near future.
- In 2021, cybercrime also developed. Analysts note that the scale of attacks and the methods of attackers will continue to evolve as technology develops and penetrates into our lives.
Governments and the Internet: Pressure on Social Networks and Blocking
Global Internet freedom has declined for the eleventh consecutive year, and conditions for the protection of human rights online have deteriorated this year in 30 countries. This is stated in the study Freedom on the Net for 2021, published in September.
The project assessed Internet freedom in 70 countries, which account for 88% of users in the world. The leader of the rating, according to analysts working on the report of the organization Freedom House, was Iceland. The lowest level of Internet freedom in China.
A feature of 2021, which experts pointed out, was the struggle of the authorities and technology corporations, primarily social networks. The governments of at least 48 countries over the past year have introduced new rules to regulate the activities of such companies.
The adoption of such measures is ambiguous. As, however, is the policy of social networks themselves.
It has long been obvious that giants like Facebook or Twitter are no longer just resources where people share their thoughts, achievements and photos. They have become platforms that play a huge role in shaping the political agenda, which means that they can become an instrument for influencing the processes in individual countries and the whole world.
At the beginning of 2021, the issue of content moderation and censorship in social networks positioning themselves as open platforms again exacerbated the discussion about freedom of speech on the Internet. It arose because of the case with the blocking of ex-US President Donald Trump by large platforms.
In January, after a series of controversial posts by Trump, his supporters, who disagree with the results of the presidential election, headed to the Capitol. During the protests, violence began,several people were killed.
Because of the threat to public safety, the accounts of Trump and his supporters blocked many social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Jack Dorsey, then CEO of Twitter, said he was confident that the decision to ban the ex-president was the right one, but admitted that the blocking created a dangerous precedent and could have “real and significant consequences.”
Later this year, ex-employee of the social network Frances Hogen threw wood into the fire of scandals around the electoral censorship of Facebook, providing the media with internal documents of the company – the so-called Facebook Papers.
Among the many revealed details of the platform’s work, it followedthat Mark Zuckerberg personally ordered to strengthen censorship against anti-government publications in Vietnam. According to sources, this happened after the ruling party of the country threatened to block the social network.
Zuckerberg himself called Facebook Papers a coordinated attempt to slander the company. He said that when making decisions, it is necessary to find a balance between competing aspects, such as freedom of speech and reducing malicious content, ensuring privacy through encryption and supporting law enforcement and others:
“These issues are primarily not about our business, but about the balance of complex social values. And I’ve repeatedly called for regulation to make things clear, because I don’t think companies have to make many of these decisions on their own.”
Against the backdrop of such scandals, journalists and experts began to talk more and more often about the end of the era of self-regulation of large platforms.
In the European Union, Great Britain,Australia, laws are being developed that in one way or another strengthen the supervision over the activities of social networks. This is also called for in the United States. Fairly strict rules for social platforms in 2021 were implemented in India.
According to a study by ProtonVPN,as of November, less than 60% of countries have “complete” freedom of social networks, that is, they practically do not limit content.
The Russian authorities also paid close attention to the work of large social platforms. On February 1, a law came into force in the Russian Federation obliging Internet resources with attendance of more than 500,000 Russian users per day to independently identify and block illegal content.
Hackers do not sleep: ransomware, scammers and attacks on bitcoin owners
Digitalization and the penetration of technology into our lives began a long time ago, but the pandemic has significantly accelerated this process. Work from home, the development of Internet payments, the dependence of company processes on the network – the world is changing, and with it cybercrime.
According to Group-IB, online fraud has become the main crime on the Internet – in the first half of the year, it accounted for 74.5% of all actions of cybercriminals.
The “theme of the year” was ransomware viruses. High-profile attacks, such as hacking into the U.S. Colonial Pipeline system, disrupted businesses, hospitals, banks, and government systems, and malware operators demanded multimillion-dollar ransoms to decrypt files.
Governments, in an attempt to prevent ransomware, decided to fight not only hackers, but also cryptocurrencies, in which attackers often ask for ransom. For this, for example, the US authorities intend to monitor crypto transactions.
Cryptocurrency owners themselves are also attracting more and more attention of intruders. In various ways, hackers gain access to bitcoin wallets, attack cryptocurrency platforms, and, like last year, exploit vulnerabilities in DeFi protocols.
Analysts have estimated that the number of cybercrimes in the crypto market increased by 81% compared to 2020, and predict a further increase in the number of hacker attacks.
What’s next?
Most cybersecurity experts agree on one thing – the trends we observed in 2021 will continue into the next. The growth of cyber attacks, the increasing regulation of the Internet, the search for a balance between privacy and security.
However, there is good news. As all these problems arise, so do the methods of solving them.
More and more human rights defenders and experts raise the issues of the need to respect privacy and provide control to Internet users themselves over their data, cybersecurity standards are being developed and popularized. For example, according to the State of the Authstudy, 79% of respondents in 2021 used 2FA. For comparison, in 2017 there were 28%, and in 2019 – 53%.
Probably, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will play a big role in solving many issues. Experts suggest using AI to scan systems for vulnerabilities and identify anomalous activity, as well as use it to identify intruders (as Meta intends to do in its messengers).
“Since the world of information technology is changing rapidly, we have not yet fully implemented artificial intelligence and the story of bioethics continues, the topic of privacy will develop along with the development of the entire IT industry,” says Stanislav Shakirov, technical director of Roskomsvoboda, founder of Privacy Accelerator.
Issues of privacy and management of user data by large corporations will also be gradually addressed. Today, with information about people becoming the new gold, more and more attention is paid to what happens to it and how it is protected – both regulators and experts are developing new standards for compliance with cybersecurity requirements and user privacy controls.
Nevertheless, for all this to work, a balance in the “alignment of forces” and the decentralization of this process are necessary. If governments gain powerful leverage over social networks or instant messengers, both freedom of speech and user privacy may be at risk.
Under the pretext of protection or convenience, quite ambiguous tools can often be introduced. The pandemic has demonstrated how quickly it is possible to spread mass surveillance tools that leave little room for privacy.
In 2022, we are also waiting for another threat associated with an encroachment on freedoms, this time economic, – the introduction of digital currencies of central banks.
What challenges await us in the future, it is difficult to predict. However, one thing can be said – the world has changed and is unlikely to be the same, and we only have to decide whether we will be indifferent observers of these transformations or try to protect our (Internet) freedoms.
