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"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...." Charles Dickens wrote these words in 1859, but they could just as easily have been written to describe the state of IT security today. These are the best of times because technology has never been so advanced and IT professionals have never been so competent. These are also the worst of times because cybercriminals have never been so sophisticated. As we enter 2014, what can the world of IT expect; or, perhaps more appropriately, what does IT have to fear?
In short, a lot. 2013 saw new vulnerabilities and distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks. Edward Snowden has become a household name-- a hero to some and a villain to others-- and the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA) seem to the subject of constant news reports and court decisions.
In addition to the type of government surveillance that George Orwell wrote about in 1984, malware and identity theft plague Americans as they conduct business online. IT professionals are looked at as the last line of defense against cyber attacks, but even corporations with presumably cutting-edge IT departments aren't immune. (See, for example, the attack on the credit card database of Target that affected 40 million customers.)
Even the advent of virtual currency like bitcoin has spawned a new type of Internet threat called ransomware. The biggest player in this arena is the group behind Cryptolocker, which uses asymmetric encryption to lock users out of their own computers or important files until the victims pay the ransom that the attackers demand.
Of course, concerns about IT security shouldn't be limited to residential or organizational IT infrastructure. Cloud computing provides opportunities for both users and those who seek to take something of value from them, whether it be in the form of business data, personal financial information or even an individual's identity. And then there's the rapidly growing mobile computing (e.g., smartphone and tablets) landscape.
Where this will go from here is anyone's guess (as any Internet search on "IT security predictions" will elucidate). However, it is highly unlikely that the proliferation of cyber attacks and creation of malware will decrease in the foreseeable future; in fact, the best and worst of the world of IT security will probably continue to coexist. Govern yourselves accordingly.