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It’s Christmas already? In lower than every week, 2023 will likely be within the rear-view mirror. This implies it’s not too early to look forward at what 2024 might convey for cybersecurity.
All through its historical past, the cybersecurity business has consistently reacted to attacker pivots in addition to operational actuality shifts, and the brand new yr will likely be no completely different. The cat-and-mouse recreation between attackers and defenders is bound to accentuate and turn into extra advanced as newer applied sciences like AI and the cloud change the cybersecurity panorama.
Add different components, akin to extra aggressive authorities motion on cybersecurity risks and the 2024 election, and the brand new yr is shaping up as significantly dynamic.
Listed here are 5 developments to anticipate within the coming yr.
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1: The accelerating information explosion will drive a safety technique rethink
The world has been speaking about exponential progress in pc information for years, however actuality continues to be managing to exceed the hype. One report predicts that the amount of information a typical group must safe will bounce by 42% within the subsequent yr and enhance by a staggering 7X within the subsequent 5 years.
I imagine there are two primary causes for this: the ever-increasing prevalence of data-generating digital units and surging adoption of AI methods that require enormous quantities of information for his or her coaching and enchancment.
In right this moment’s multifaceted expertise panorama, enterprises face a brand new problem. Information generated in software-as-a-service (SaaS) methods climbed 145% within the final yr, whereas cloud information was up 73%. By comparability, on-premise information facilities noticed a 20% rise. Oh — and don’t neglect somebody has to pay the cloud and SaaS payments, that are going up nearly as quick as the info is rising.
What this all means is that in 2024, organizations will face a stiffer problem in securing information throughout a quickly increasing and altering floor space.
That will likely be a significant cybersecurity focus for a lot of organizations subsequent yr. Extra will acknowledge that your entire safety assemble has shifted: It’s now not about defending particular person castles however moderately an interconnected caravan.
2: Attackers will broaden their assaults on virtualized infrastructure
As organizations develop extra subtle in defending conventional targets akin to computer systems and cell units, some dangerous actors have already pivoted to making an attempt to penetrate different infrastructure elements akin to SaaS and Linux purposes, APIs and bare-metal hypervisors.
In a telling signal of the menace, VMWare warned earlier this yr that attackers exploited vulnerabilities in its ESXi hypervisor and elements to deploy ransomware. Different experiences throughout the yr additionally confirmed that ESXi-related ransomware breaches are increasing.
Let’s not neglect: Attackers learn the information too. They’re largely a “follower” economic system that quickly pivots to identified successes.
Lastly, these kind of assaults current many attacker benefits round pace and scale for his or her intrusions. The expertise cuts each methods.
These applied sciences signify greenfield alternatives for attackers, and I believe we’ll hear extra about these sorts of incidents in 2024.
3: Edge units will develop as a goal for “boutique” hacker teams
In September, U.S. and Japanese authorities companies announced that hackers linked to the Individuals’s Republic of China used stolen or weak administrative credentials to compromise Cisco routers with the set up of hard-to-detect backdoors for sustaining entry.
The disclosure exemplified an rising pattern we’ll see extra of within the new yr: Authorities intrusion teams viewing assaults on edge units as a option to differentiate themselves from garden-variety ransomware gangs.
As a result of these sorts of intrusions take appreciable technological prowess, are sometimes tough to detect and might do quite a lot of injury, they’re nearly undoubtedly a significant separator throughout cyber threats.
Edge units nearly definitely will likely be a significant cybersecurity battlefront in 2024 and can present a possibility for hacker teams to point out off their capabilities. There will likely be teams that may pull this off (and can). To push this prediction all the way in which to the sting (pun supposed), authorities applications might even “defend” this edge entry from different cybercrime teams and push them out to take care of their stealthy entry.
4: AI will dominate the cybersecurity dialog
For those who assume you haven’t already heard so much about AI’s potential for cybersecurity, simply wait till 2024. AI will be front and center in a spread of cybersecurity discussions.
Each attackers and defenders will step up their use of AI. The dangerous guys will use it extra to generate malware, automate assaults and strengthen the effectiveness of social engineering campaigns. The great guys will counter by incorporating machine studying (ML) algorithms, pure language processing (NLP) and different AI-based instruments into their cybersecurity methods.
In the meantime, the Brennan Middle for Justice calls 2024 the primary presidential election of the generative AI period. Candidates possible might want to deal with the “AI anxiety” that many citizens really feel. And, concern is rampant that the expertise might be used to spread disinformation by deepfakes and AI-generated voices.
I imagine there’s nearly no situation the place AI-driven deepfakes gained’t be a part of the pending U.S. Presidential election amongst others.
We’ll additionally hear extra in regards to the function AI can play in fixing the persistent cybersecurity talent gap, with AI-powered methods taking up an increasing number of of the routine operations in safety operations facilities.
Relating to cybersecurity in 2024, AI will likely be in every single place.
5: CISOs (and others) will really feel strain from latest authorities actions
In late October, the Securities and Change Fee announced expenses towards SolarWinds Company — which was focused by a Russian-backed hacking group in one of many worst cyber-espionage incidents in U.S. historical past in 2019 — and its chief data safety officer, Timothy G. Brown.
The criticism alleged that for greater than two years, SolarWinds and Brown defrauded buyers by overstating SolarWinds’ cybersecurity practices and understating or failing to reveal identified dangers.
The fees got here practically six months after a decide sentenced Joseph Sullivan, the previous CISO at Uber, to a few years of probation and ordered him to pay a $50,000 superb after a jury discovered him responsible of two felonies. Sullivan had been charged with protecting up a ransomware assault whereas Uber was below investigation by the Federal Commerce Fee for earlier lapses in information safety.
However many critics of the decision have questioned why Sullivan might be held criminally responsible for negotiating a deal to repay the ransomware attackers to guard his firm’s repute.
On high of all that, new SEC rules on cybersecurity and disclosure of breaches took impact Dec. 15. They require private and non-private firms to adjust to quite a few incident reporting and governance disclosure necessities.
All of it will have CISOs wanting over their shoulder in 2024. As if defending their organizations from dangerous actors wasn’t difficult sufficient, now they must pay extra consideration to documenting completely every little thing. The CISO function will tackle a heavier regulatory compliance taste.
The whole C-suite can even possible should recalibrate their personal/public sector discussions in 2024.
Together with the factors above and their ripple results into different peer positions, the geopolitical panorama is altering. The final three years have proven unparalleled interplay and advocacy for working throughout personal and public divides. These are due largely to goodwill created from the community-wide SolarWinds response efforts and near-universal assist for Ukrainian cyber efforts.
SolarWinds and the SEC will shift the previous level — and the Israel-Hamas battle is way extra divisive than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All of this may occasionally result in a demonstrable shift in how senior leaders converse of, and with, governments.
As these 5 predictions present, 2024 needs to be an particularly fascinating yr within the cybersecurity enviornment. The brand new yr is upon us, and I’m buckling up for the experience.
Steven Stone is head of Rubrik Zero Labs at zero belief information safety firm Rubrik.
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