10 Cybersecurity Predictions We Need to Get Behind in 2024 and Beyond

Firms tasked with information security often ask themselves – “how to protect our customers and businesses from online threats before they happen?” You see, cybersecurity predictions are a huge deal for security and risk leaders.

Given the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the past 2-3 years, 2024 also promises to push data security into new directions. It pays to know what kinds of security lapses organizations will face this year and beyond, and what can be done regarding them.

Here are 10 cybersecurity predictions that everyone needs to be aware of.

1. Modern privacy laws like GDPR will become the norm worldwide

Today’s tech-savvy consumers take online privacy more seriously than ever. The introduction of GDPR in Europe has prompted a snowball effect for stronger data privacy and security laws in other countries.

We now have General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD) in Brazil and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the USA. And that’s just the beginning.

Given these developments, organizations will have to learn how to manage data protection legislation from multiple jurisdictions. Customers want transparency on how their data will be used. Use GDPR as a base to update and standardize your security operations.

2. Cybersecurity mesh architectures will help mitigate the financial effect of security incidents

Remote work is becoming commonplace. This means that organizations need a flexible security solution to meet the needs of a hybrid workplace.

The answer lies in cybersecurity mesh architecture which works with identities outside your company’s traditional security perimeter. You get improved security for remote workers.

3. A push towards optimized and consolidated cloud security solutions from one vendor

We are going to see organizations and security leaders opt for cloud-powered solutions like Secure Web Gateway, Cloud Access Security Brokers, Zero Trust Network Access, and more, often from the same vendor.

Security leaders already manage dozens of tools. They need less, not more, and consolidating tools from a single vendor seems doable. Taking advantage of SaaS means that there will be quicker hardware adoption time frames for organizations.

4. For organizations, cybersecurity risk will become a primary factor with respect to business engagement and third-party transactions

Opportunities such as mergers, acquisitions, contracts, etc. will be subject to greater security oversights by investors.  These transactions will be weighed against cybersecurity risk as the primary determining factor.

The result – business partners will be sharing data requests for security ratings and questionnaires as part of their cybersecurity programs.

5. Ransomware payments, fines and negotiations will be increasingly regulated by nations

Ransomware attacks have made nation-states sit up and take notice. Less than 1% of countries had laws against ransomware payments in 2021, but this number is expected to go up to 30% by 2025.

This is because paying ransom is not purely a monetary decision. There are legal, ethical, and moral ramifications to paying attackers. To pay or not to pay, such decisions should be undertaken after consultations with a cross-functional security team. 

6. Human casualties caused by cybersecurity lapses will become potentially real by 2025

 Until now, cyber attacks have mostly concerned themselves with business disruption. As self-driving cars, virtual reality-powered metaverse worlds and other operational technology environments become part of our lives, the capability to cause physical harm has increased manifold.

Organizations will need to have security teams in place for such eventualities, especially for cyber-physical systems.

7. Medical ecosystems will be under greater threat than before

Given the effect of coronavirus pandemic on the health sector, threat actors will be increasingly targeting healthcare providers with ransomware attacks. Be it blood banks, hospitals or even clinics, attackers will go after patient records and billing systems rather than medical devices.

There is a need for stakeholders in the medical sector to invest in protecting their vulnerable IT systems. This can be done by introducing processes such as network segmentation, multi-factor authentication protocols, and more.

8. Deepfakes will be used to steal consumer and business data in 2024 and beyond

Customer and business information will be increasingly under threat with deepfake technology in the mix. They can be used to bypass multi-factor authentication protocols as well as know-your-customer ID verification systems.

9. Supply chain attacks will become widespread

Remember the devastating SolarWinds attack in July 2021? The attack spread from one major IT firm to its clients, evading detection for months.

The SolarWinds hack was the result of hackers adding malicious code into the company’s software after they broke in. SolarWinds employs a system called Orion that is used for managing the IT resources for its 33,000 customers.

SolarWinds regularly sends out updates to its clients whenever they fix bugs or add features. The malicious code ended up being sent to thousands of its customers in March 2020. This code ended up creating a backdoor to at least 18,000 customers’ IT systems. Hackers used them to install malware that helped spy on companies.

SolarWinds was a new kind of attack. Expect malicious actors to deploy supply chain hacks in the years ahead.

10. Organizations will move to rapidly employ a Zero Trust approach

Eric O’Neill from VMWare shares that, “in 2021, we saw a massive proliferation of hacking tools, vulnerabilities and attack capabilities on the Dark Web.” 

Given the spate of increasingly sophisticated security threats, most of them with zero-day vulnerabilities, organizations need to rely on a brand-new security framework – Zero Trust. This approach is designed to secure remote workers, hybrid cloud environments, and ransomware attacks.

 The Zero Trust security framework requires that users “inside or outside the organization’s network should be authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated for security configuration and posture before being granted or keeping access to applications and data.”

COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation at work. Zero Trust stems from the challenges for ensuring data security for networks, be they local, in the cloud, or have a hybrid configuration.