"Look back to learn how to look forward.”
Joe Girard
When Joe Girard said "look back to learn how to look forward," he meant that by analyzing past experiences, successes, and failures, one can gain valuable insights that can then be applied to future decisions and strategies, essentially using the lessons from the past to make better choices going forward. Deemed the "World's Greatest Salesman", he knew the importance of these words and put them into action for his ultimate success.
The world of Cybersecurity is fast-paced and ever-changing, so the past quickly becomes the future in the blink of an eye. Staying ahead of the curve is essential, and there were many trends from this past year to keep us in the industry busy. We will highlight the top 3 trends in this article.
First, and probably the most-talked about, is the Integration of AI and Machine Learning.
Throughout 2024, AI has been breaking new ground with a host of transformative trends. Generative AI technologies, like GPT-4 and Google's Gemini, are expanding their capabilities across text, image, and audio processing, driving innovation in various fields. Customized AI solutions are becoming more accessible, empowering users to create tailored applications without needing advanced technical skills. AI continues to enhance productivity through tools like Microsoft's Copilot, which streamline tasks and improve efficiency. Multimodal AI is integrating diverse data types to enable sophisticated applications, while AI's influence in healthcare, cybersecurity, and entertainment is growing significantly. Moreover, the open-source AI movement is gaining momentum, making advanced technologies more accessible, and ethical considerations and regulatory measures are increasingly shaping the development and deployment of AI systems.
Innovation is a constant in technology. This has been especially true in 2024 for our 2nd major trend, ransomware. It is estimated that ransomware attacks will rise 20% to 30% this year and in coming years, and that between 70% and 90% of organizations have been the target of this kind of attack. What innovations have we seen in ransomware this year?
Ransomware as a Service (RaaS): This allows more people, with lesser skills, to utilize advanced tools to attempt these attacks.
New targets: Operational technology (OT), cloud services and supply chains have all come under increasing attacks.
Data exfiltration: Malicious actors are now exfiltrating data and threating to release the data if ransom is not paid, in addition to encrypting data to render it unusable.
Critical infrastructure: Services such as healthcare, energy, and public utilities, which has very serious negative potential outcomes, are coming under increasing attacks.
As malicious actors continue to develop more sophisticated ransomware attacks, the tools and techniques needed to stop these attacks need to evolve as well.
Lastly, we have a trend that has been a constant for malicious actors for decades, phishing. Phishing first appeared in the late 1990s targeting AOL users. Today CISA estimates that 90% of cyber-attacks begin with some form of phishing. Phishing, in all its forms, isn’t going anywhere, and remains the mainstay of cyber criminals because it works. Phishing is also evolving in 2024 becoming more sophisticated, and hackers are utilizing new techniques such as fake websites, social engineering, targeted attacks on specific people like spear-phishing, whaling, and business email compromise. What can we do to protect our people and organizations? We must develop a robust security program that utilizes practices such as employee training, email filtering, multi-factor authentication, deploying XDR technology, and regular updating of security systems as foundational requirements. To minimize the exposure to phishing we must make it a main consideration in every cybersecurity policy.
AI, Ransomware, and Phishing are some of the top trends in cybersecurity from 2024, but there were more. Each area requires new thinking and planning to address the innovations and evolutions that have been occurring at breakneck speed so that we can be more secure. As we move forward, we will glance back on these trends and how they have taught us how to look forward into 2025 and beyond.
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