As we prepare to ring in the new year, the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape promises to bring new cyber threat actors, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses to counter.
As technology evolves, so do cyber threat actors' tactics, techniques, and procedures to take advantage of unsuspecting organizations for personal gain.
Human-operated ransomware attacks have been a persistent threat, and we anticipate that they'll continue to evolve.
This year, we saw major companies like MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment lose 100s of millions of dollars in very high-profile, human-operated ransomware attacks.
These attacks involved cybercriminals making fraudulent phone calls to unsuspecting employees and help desks to phish for credentials.
The attackers then used those credentials to access the network and deploy ransomware.
The large payout of these attacks is likely to entice cybercriminals to employ more advanced encryption techniques and diversify their targets to include not only large enterprises but also small and medium-sized businesses in 2024.
In 2023, we saw the widespread interest and adoption of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT. Unfortunately for us, cybercriminals also took notice and began leveraging AI to automate and optimize their attacks, despite potential safeguards being put into place to prevent such actions.
In one reported instance, a cyber threat actor used AI to create a convincing three-paragraph email asking its target for help with an urgent invoice for use in a phishing attempt.
In 2023, we saw cyber threat actors take advantage of a vulnerability in the MOVEit file transfer tool that supports the exchange of large amounts of data between servers, systems, and applications.
This has resulted in multiple US government entities and private organizations being targeted for ransom since large swaths of private citizen and customer data were being stolen due to attackers exploiting unpatched MOVEit instances.
We predict an increase in attacks targeting the software supply chain, aiming to compromise the integrity of widely used applications and services in the coming year.
In the coming year, we can anticipate that both the United States and the European Union will push to implement significant cybersecurity initiatives like adopting mandatory self-assessment protocols.
We expect that there will be a push to further those laws by taking a more proactive approach to cybersecurity that includes adversarial exercises or continuously attacking one's environment to understand its weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
The mandatory self-assessments will likely require organizations to evaluate their cybersecurity measures, identify vulnerabilities, and implement necessary safeguards.
Cyber threat actors may target the West for financial gain through ransom demands, geopolitical motivations, or even sabotage to destabilize a region or nation.
Think about the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack that occurred in May 2021 that involved a ransomware attack on one of the largest fuel pipeline systems in the US. The incident caused widespread concern among consumers about the availability of gasoline to run their cars and severely impacted their ability to conduct normal, day-to-day activities, while simultaneously raising concern about the impact of cyberattacks on essential services and raising awareness about the need for enhanced cybersecurity measures.
Given these predictions, we strongly advise organizations to adopt a preemptive cybersecurity strategy.
It's essential to conduct continuous security assessments, implement employee training programs, and collaborate with security experts in your industry, which will be crucial in fortifying defenses against the evolving threat landscape.
These measures are critical for strengthening defenses in the face of the ever-changing threat landscape.
This Cyber News was published on securityboulevard.com. Publication date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 01:13:06 +0000