The world is shocked by the recent ransomware attacks, but what happened was simply inevitable. Be prepared for more to come.
Why?
To oversimplify as much as possible, our tech systems are getting progressively more and more complex, bloated and insecure. Not only that, but much of our government systems(particularly hospitals and public transportation infrastructure) are reliant on legacy hardware and software due to how obscure the software they use is. That is why the WannaCry ransomware attacks have been so devastating on the NHS and other healthcare providers, they can’t afford to update their operating systems as it would force them to either completely remake their basic management software and throw away thousands of dollars worth of valuable equipment. Besides just that, there’s simply the corporate greed aspect where companies rush development of software by cutting corners and using legacy code. This leads to more and more complexity with very little security. Code becomes more and more esoteric as developers pile package upon package, creating more and more loopholes for hackers to exploit. Heck, even basic things like web-browsers are overloaded with scripts and data-collection software, with a particularly clever hacker could exploit to potentially get billions of dollars worth of personal information. Not only that, but the government often has corporations intentionally install backdoors into their hardware and software for data collection purposes in the name of “national security”. If a rogue programmer from one of these companies were to expose this backdoor, the results would be devastating. Even the cloud isn’t safe, while large tech companies try their absolute hardest to keep your files safe, more and more exploits become possible as they add features for the sake of simplicity. Online banking services are also at extreme risk for similar reasons.
What I believe will happen in the next couple of years is that a series of cyberattacks on large tech conglomerates like Microsoft or online banking companies like Paypal or Visa will lead to their shares plummeting as people lose trust in them and soon the entire IT industry will crash worse than the dotcom bubble in the 1990s.
So what can you do about all this? Riding the tiger is what I recommend. First, buy solid assets like gold and silver for security. Second, wait for the crash, once it happens, buy as much stock from Microsoft/Apple or any other large tech-conglomerates as possible. No one, not even the cybersecurity experts at google can stop the crash, so the only thing you can do is to take advantage of it.
The Patrician Plebeian 