Cybersecurity is a fast-moving sector, as both hackers and security providers vie to outsmart each other. New threats – and innovative ways to combat them – are emerging all the time. So, we’ve rounded up five security experts to provide insight into which security trends organizations should be aware of for the remainder of 2023.
At HostedBizz, we have seen more clients being hit with ransomware attacks at an increasingly alarming rate. This has caused them to embrace a more holistic approach to data protection but still require cost-effective solutions to manage.
In 2023, we will see an increase in ransomware cases, fueling the adoption of managed cybersecurity solutions. In addition, we expect more advanced, AI-driven attacks to be more commonplace in 2023 and beyond, demanding enterprises to shift their IT focus and put security frameworks and toolsets front and center.
Outsourcing cyber protection to a managed service provider ensures that SMBs can protect their endpoints, networks and cloud services and work with a team of cyber security experts without breaking the bank.
The first would be to reduce costs while consistently reducing risk through vendor consolidation and moving to a platform versus a non-integrated point solution. Security professionals want to manage security, not vendor relationships.
AI has also been a hot topic in the past few weeks, and I anticipate we’ll see a much faster move to security automation with AI and more profound insights through AI-powered threat intelligence.
Lastly would be a continued focus on mastering the basics. For example, better and automated patching, Zero Trust, including Privileged Access and MFA but with deeper insights and leveraging intelligence across the platform.
The first focuses on remote work. The zero-trust strategy will be a principal framework when considering and implementing secure access with advanced access controls to corporate resources. This will make it more effective than traditional VPN systems, and I think we will continue to see an increase in transition to the zero-trust models.
Second, we are now more connected than ever, with users now using more types of devices, applications and locations to connect to corporate resources to do their work; this increases the threat surface, exposes risks and presents vulnerabilities for attackers to exploit.
Third, with the advancements of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities that continue to develop, I think we will see a risk increase in 2023 with the possibility of sophisticated, automated, AI-driven attacks.
Fourth, cyber insurance premiums are increasing, and cybersecurity regulations are becoming stricter in the USA. I would not be surprised to see stronger regulations coming to Canada in 2023. This is likely to introduce several security controls to be in place for organizations to be insured.
All these trends will make it more difficult for small and medium organizations to manage their cybersecurity independently. Therefore, employing a managed security service provider will also become more common in 2023.
The first trend we foresee is the augmentation of data-driven monitoring and observability intelligence to mitigate and eliminate risk and guarantee high-quality data and compliance.
Over the next year, we will see more companies using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to digest data, detect patterns, forecast, and even predict operational needs. In addition, network Services that generate high-grade data and intelligence on usage, behaviour, and health of any device or end-user in the network will be used to effectuate autonomous networks and improve security.
A second trend concerns the rise of malware and ransomware. Ransomware has become profitable, resulting in significant disruptions, and leaked or stolen data, with all industries being affected. For protection, organizations will increasingly use DNS as a foundation tool for anti-ransomware programs.
DNS’s unique position in the network allows it to see the intent of all traffic, making it naturally a first line of defence. As a result, high-performance DNS, incorporating response policy zones (RPZs), threat intelligence, and log and behaviour analysis, will be adopted.
As we noted in our 2023 Threat Landscape Predictions, one significant trend we saw in the threat landscape in 2022 is how cybercrime is evolving as a global business. Instead of individuals or small groups executing the entire attack themselves, roles and responsibilities are becoming divided into separate groups creating a criminal chain, from initial compromise all the way to monetization to help scale criminal efforts. For instance, initial access brokers get access to companies and sell them on the dark web. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) providers develop the ransomware and take care of negotiation and payment, but don’t deploy the ransomware themselves. This allows groups to focus on their field and create more sophisticated services while allowing newcomers easier entry to cybercrime. We expect more innovative crime-as-a-service (CaaS) solutions to be created in 2023.
