Five bold cybersecurity predictions for 2024

It’s Christmas already? In lower than every week, 2023 shall 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 trade has continuously reacted to attacker pivots in addition to operational actuality shifts, and the brand new yr shall be no totally different. The cat-and-mouse sport between attackers and defenders is certain to accentuate and grow to be extra advanced as newer applied sciences like AI and the cloud change the cybersecurity panorama.

Add different elements, corresponding to extra aggressive authorities motion on cybersecurity risks and the 2024 election, and the brand new yr is shaping up as notably dynamic.

Listed below are 5 traits to count on within the coming yr.

1: The accelerating knowledge explosion will pressure a safety technique rethink

The world has been speaking about exponential progress in laptop knowledge for years, however actuality continues to be managing to exceed the hype. One report predicts that the amount of knowledge a typical group must safe will soar by 42% within the subsequent yr and improve by a staggering 7X within the subsequent 5 years.

I consider there are two primary causes for this: the ever-increasing prevalence of data-generating digital units and surging adoption of AI programs that require big quantities of knowledge for his or her coaching and enchancment.

In right this moment’s multifaceted know-how panorama, enterprises face a brand new problem. Information generated in software-as-a-service (SaaS) programs climbed 145% within the final yr, whereas cloud knowledge was up 73%. By comparability, on-premise knowledge facilities noticed a 20% rise. Oh — and don’t neglect somebody has to pay the cloud and SaaS payments, that are going up virtually as quick as the info is rising.

What this all means is that in 2024, organizations will face a stiffer problem in securing knowledge throughout a quickly increasing and altering floor space.

That shall be a serious cybersecurity focus for a lot of organizations subsequent yr. Extra will acknowledge that the complete safety assemble has shifted: It’s now not about defending particular person castles however slightly an interconnected caravan.

2: Attackers will broaden their assaults on virtualized infrastructure

As organizations develop extra refined in defending conventional targets corresponding to computer systems and cellular units, some unhealthy actors have already pivoted to making an attempt to penetrate different infrastructure parts corresponding to SaaS and Linux purposes, APIs and bare-metal hypervisors.

In a telling signal of the risk, VMWare warned earlier this yr that attackers exploited vulnerabilities in its ESXi hypervisor and parts to deploy ransomware. Different reviews through 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” financial system that quickly pivots to recognized successes. 

Lastly, most of these assaults current many attacker benefits round velocity and scale for his or her intrusions. The know-how cuts each methods.

These applied sciences characterize 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 businesses announced that hackers linked to the Folks’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 solution 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 an excessive amount of harm, they’re virtually undoubtedly a significant separator throughout cyber threats.

Edge units virtually definitely shall be a serious cybersecurity battlefront in 2024 and can present a chance for hacker teams to point out off their capabilities. There shall be teams that may pull this off (and can). To push this prediction all the best way to the sting (pun supposed), authorities applications might even “defend” this edge entry from different cybercrime teams and push them out to keep up their stealthy entry.

4: AI will dominate the cybersecurity dialog

Should you suppose you haven’t already heard rather a lot 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 unhealthy guys will use it extra to generate malware, automate assaults and strengthen the effectiveness of social engineering campaigns. The nice 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 Heart for Justice calls 2024 the primary presidential election of the generative AI period. Candidates seemingly might want to handle the “AI anxiety” that many citizens really feel. And, concern is rampant that the know-how could possibly be used to spread disinformation by deepfakes and AI-generated voices.

I consider there may be virtually no state of affairs the place AI-driven deepfakes received’t be a part of the pending U.S. Presidential election amongst others. 

We’ll additionally hear extra concerning the position AI can play in fixing the persistent cybersecurity talent gap, with AI-powered programs taking up increasingly more of the routine operations in safety operations facilities. 

In relation to cybersecurity in 2024, AI shall be all over the place.

5: CISOs (and others) will really feel strain from latest authorities actions

In late October, the Securities and Change Fee announced fees 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 info 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 recognized dangers. 

The fees got here almost 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 effective after a jury discovered him responsible of two felonies. Sullivan had been charged with masking up a ransomware assault whereas Uber was underneath investigation by the Federal Commerce Fee for earlier lapses in knowledge safety.

However many critics of the decision have questioned why Sullivan could possibly be held criminally chargeable 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 corporations to adjust to quite a few incident reporting and governance disclosure necessities.

All of it will have CISOs trying over their shoulder in 2024. As if defending their organizations from unhealthy actors wasn’t difficult sufficient, now they must pay extra consideration to documenting completely all the pieces. The CISO position will tackle a heavier regulatory compliance taste.

The complete C-suite may even seemingly must 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 help for Ukrainian cyber efforts. 

SolarWinds and the SEC will shift the previous level — and the Israel-Hamas battle is much extra divisive than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All of this may occasionally result in a demonstrable shift in how senior leaders communicate of, and with, governments.

As these 5 predictions present, 2024 ought to be an particularly fascinating yr within the cybersecurity area. The brand new yr is upon us, and I’m buckling up for the trip.

Steven Stone is head of Rubrik Zero Labs at zero belief knowledge safety firm Rubrik.