Cybersecurity remains one of the most critical concerns facing businesses and individual users alike. As hacker attack strategies evolve, the number of cyber threats and data breaches continues to grow. It is more important than ever stay vigilant and understand how the industry is innovating and advancing end-to-end security solutions, cloud computing, threat tracking, and artificial intelligence.
Our list of trends, predictions and strategies has everything you need to prepare for 2023 and its cybersecurity challenges.
2023 Cybersecurity Trends
Data Driven Intelligence
2023 will bring enormous developments in the use of data for security purposes, including tools that connect with users or hasten indecent response times. To this end, Data-driven intelligence refers to the use of large amounts of data to make informed decisions and drive action. In the context of cybersecurity, data-driven intelligence is the use of data analytics and machine learning algorithms to detect and respond to security threats.
Data Driven intelligence can serve as a reliable approach to incident prediction and prevention, especially as companies begin to leverage data previous security incidents. For example, Machine learning algorithms can analyze previous information and identify patterns of behavior that indicate a potential cyber-attack, such as unusual network traffic or a sudden increase in login attempts from a specific location.
However, the management and analysis of the data must be performed meticulously to ensure data-driven intelligence is used effectively. Ensuring data quality, safeguarding it from unwanted access, and adhering to applicable data privacy laws remains vital to the improvement of cloud ecosystems and network security.
Hackable IoT & Supply Chain Attacks
The rise of cyber-physical systems and the vulnerability of technologies like autonomous cars or digital twins serves as a major concern for 2023 and beyond. While internet connected devices have become highly consumerized, this trend has particular relevance for critical infrastructure where a hacked device can have life or death consequences.
We can anticipate that threat actors to start leveraging AI to quickly and precisely target vital supply networks and infrastructure. By 2025, it is expected that cyber-attackers will be able to use operational technology environments as weapons successfully enough to cause human casualties.
Likewise, manufacturing environments are particularly vulnerable as many businesses increasingly rely on plug-in attachments or internet connected sensors to digitize legacy equipment. While non-connected machines are not susceptible, plug-ins may be susceptible to manipulation, creating costly errors, or even potential damage and harm.
To this end, Operational Technology (OT) security will hold a growing significance.
Cyber Security Skills Gap
Despite the increasing number of cyber threats and data breaches, many organizations are struggling to find enough skilled personnel to fill their cybersecurity positions. This has left a gap between the demand for cybersecurity professionals and the number of people with the necessary skills and experience.
There are a number of reasons for this lack of personnel, such as lack of education and training resources, the rapid pace of evolving technology and security challenges, and difficulties in attracting and retaining talent. The cybersecurity skills gap has significant implications for organizations, as it leaves them vulnerable to cyber threats and data breaches.
Here are a few key statistics:
- There are currently 770 million unfilled positions (cyberseek.org)
- Only 11% of organizations are considered cyber-experts when it comes to their level of proactive threat protection. A significant 73% are fall into a novice ranking for handling the current cybercrime environment (com)
- 61% of data breaches in recent years involved companies with fewer than 1,000 employees (com)
- 69% of companies have understaffed cyber security teams, if they have one at all (com)
Given that fighting cybercrime is a 24×7 responsibility, it is highly important that companies fill the skills gap. Organizations with existing security personnel need to invest in education and training programs that focus on cybersecurity, as well as support the career development of their existing cybersecurity personnel.
Alternatively, companies that are unable to develop security teams in-house may need to rely on external service providers to fill the gap. Finding an appropriate partner means finding service providers who are able to align with business goals with documented capacity to scale operations to business needs.
More ransomware attacks
Ransomware is a form of cyber-attack in which an attacker encrypts an organization’s data and demands payment in exchange for the decryption key.
In 2022 alone, ransomware attacks grew by 130%, and experts expect that it will continue to be a major threat to companies in 2023, causing significant financial losses, data breaches, and downtime.
In recent years, ransomware attacks have increasingly targeted critical infrastructure, such as hospitals and government agencies. Threat actors are likely to continue using new techniques and tools to evade detection and increase the impact of their attacks.
Likewise, these attacks will increasingly target small and medium-sized businesses, taking advantage of their limited resources and security measures. Additionally, ransomware-as-a-service, which enables individuals and organizations to purchase and use ransomware attacks as a commodity, will become more common. This will make it easier for attackers to launch ransomware attacks, even if they lack the technical expertise to create their own malware.
To mitigate the risk of ransomware attacks, companies need to implement robust cybersecurity measures while preparing effective and swift incident response plans to effectively recover from a ransomware attack. Through a mix of human and artificial intelligence (AI) intelligence, innovation, and investment, we will be able to act more quickly, stop attackers before they do more damage, and limit their ability to make money to support new assaults.
Data Privacy Regulations
Privacy regulations are constantly evolving in response to the changing landscape of technology and the growing concern about data privacy. It is likely that privacy regulations will continue to evolve and become more stringent, reflecting the growing awareness of the importance of protecting personal information. Understanding accommodating for new requirements and protocols will prove a challenging task for businesses across industry segments.
By the end of 2023, modern data privacy laws will cover the personal information of 75% of the world’s population. This will mean expansions of European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and similar regulations, meaning greater fines for failing to keep user data secure.
Cybersecurity Predictions in 2023
AI Powered Attacks
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to both help and harm the realm of cybersecurity. AI tools can improve cybersecurity defenses by automating threat detection, analyzing large amounts of data, and enabling faster and more accurate security incident responses. However, as the white hats use AI to analyze threats and security alike, the black hats will use AI to launch attacks that are more sophisticated.
It will be essential for businesses to maintain knowledge of the topic and adopt a proactive security strategy. AI can automate several attack phases including reconnaissance, target selection, and exploitation, enabling attackers to launch complex operations with fewer resources. It is important to contextualize specific use cases and understand how the use of AI technology will determine how it affects cyberattacks.
Less Passwords
Somehow, one of the most popular passwords year after year is “123456.” Passwords are a common target for hackers and can easily be cracked through methods such as brute-force attacks, dictionary attacks, and social engineering.
This has led to a growing number of data breaches, making passwords an increasingly insecure method of protecting sensitive information. Further, passwords are easily forgotten and often reused across multiple accounts, making it easier for attackers to gain access to sensitive information once they’ve cracked the code.
To address these challenges, many organizations are turning to alternative authentication methods, such as biometrics, multi-factor authentication, and password-less authentication. Consequently, major companies like Google are expected to roll out wide spread adoption of multi-factor authentication and other password-less options for verifying a user’s identity.
Risk Prevention and Cyber Resilience Strategies
Strengthen Cyber Resilience
Cyber Resilience represents the ability of an enterprise scale organization to limit the impact of security incidents by deploying and optimizing appropriate security tools and processes while strengthening overall cyber defenses over time. There a number of factors that contribute to the strength of a company’s cyber resilience:
- Protecting critical infrastructure: With increasing reliance on technology, many critical infrastructure systems such as energy, finance, healthcare, and transportation, are now vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Cyber resilience helps ensure that these systems are protected and can continue to operate even in the event of a cyber-attack.
- Training employees: Regular employee training on security awareness, phishing, and safe browsing practices is essential to reducing the risk of human error and increasing cyber resilience.
- Developing an incident response plan: Having an incident response plan in place can help organizations quickly respond to and recover from a cyber-attack. This plan should include steps for containing the incident, communicating with stakeholders, and restoring systems and data.
- Maintaining cybersecurity hygiene: Keeping software and systems up-to-date with the latest security patches and upgrades is important to prevent known vulnerabilities from being exploited. Likewise, regularly backing up critical data and systems helps ensure that an organization can quickly recover from a cyber-attack or data breach.
- Monitoring for threats: Regularly monitoring for threats and using tools such as intrusion detection systems and security information and event management (SIEM) systems can help detect and respond to cyber threats quickly.
Move to the Cloud
While many companies have already begun making the switch, it cannot be understated – cloud environments provide the finest physical and logical protection against cyberattacks. Critical infrastructure and companies across industry segments are more motivated to migrate to the cloud due to innovation that improves cloud cybersecurity by increasing AI capabilities.
Cloud networks enable better security monitoring and threat detection, which can help prevent or mitigate cyberattacks, while enabling better resiliency and redundancy, allowing companies to quickly recover from cyberattacks. Further, these networks help reduce the risk of human error, which is a common cause of security breaches.
The cloud offers a multi-layered approach to cybersecurity with stringent access control. By moving to cloud networks, companies can benefit from the expertise of cloud providers and their advanced security measures, while also improving their own security posture through better monitoring and automation.
Security Orchestration
Organizations require a flexible security solution because they support a variety of technologies in various locations. The requirements of a company’s security network are widening to accommodate these needs and new personas (i.e. remote and hybrid employees) that extend beyond the conventional security barrier.
By 2024, organizations that adopt a cybersecurity network architecture will be able to reduce the financial costs of security incidents by an average of 90%. By 2024, 30% of enterprises will deploy cloud-based Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), and Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), sourced from the same vendor.
Read our StefView article to discover cybersecurity best practices and skills for business success.
