In 2024, there are many great things that are expected to happen to enterprises, but the place is not devoid of great threats in the cybersecurity arena. Companies will be targets for cyber criminals which makes cloud security a top concern.
Hackers are interested in compromising any weakness that they find in an enterprise’s attack vectors and perpetrate data breaches. In order to prevent such disastrous cyber threats, it is crucial to know about the 2024 most significant cybersecurity trends.
Malware, ransomware, insider threats, supply chain attacks, phishing attacks, and social engineering attacks are only the beginning of what can be expected in the next coming years.
What is a Cybersecurity Strategy?
Every contemporary organisation has got hundreds of paths through which hostile actors may penetrate its security systems. It is crucial that every business has a security ecosystem that is a system of interrelated parts.
Cybersecurity is a complex process that encompasses both technology and people to address cybersecurity risks and threats effectively. The cybersecurity strategy, in general, should always be aligned with the overall business strategy.
Cloud security emerges as a key consideration as firms advance further into the digital arena to outcompete rivals. Having an effective and robust security plan is a game-changer that should not be overlooked.
The Best Cybersecurity Plan Advice for 2024
1. Overcome AI Security Issues
AI is an intriguing aspect of the contemporary cybersecurity environment as both attackers employ it, and enterprises defend themselves against it. The use of artificial intelligence has seen cybercriminals ramp up the number of attacks and shorten the frequency with which they occur.
The only way to effectively counter these cyber threats is by tapping into the security automation potential of AI and machine learning in security tools. Security tools can assist in threat identification with the use of AI and allow for a quick response to any threats.
The other threat to AI security is that generative AI tools are capable of generating malicious content. New generative AI tools such as ChatGPT offer many opportunities for businesses and activities but also bring new threats to cybersecurity.
2. Address Cybersecurity Skills Shortage
As the threat level rises and the techniques used by hackers become more sophisticated, businesses face not only the cybersecurity skills shortage. Lack of cybersecurity skills will be the cause of more than 50 percent of cyber-attacks in the future, by the year 2025.
The ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study 2023 further showed that 67% of the respondents noted shortage of cybersecurity teams in their organizations to address and resolve security breaches.
About 92 percent of the respondents stated that cloud security, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and zero trust security are essential security gaps within an organization.
The best way to overcome this cybersecurity skills shortage in the next year is by providing training and education to the security teams that are in-house so that they can handle the tasks that are assigned to them.
3. Be Wary of Shadow IT
Shadow IT can be defined as any IT software and hardware that has been procured without the knowledge or approval of the IT and online security departments of an organization.
The idea of using a single mouse click to order a number of enhancing productivity web applications is sometimes irresistible.
The disadvantage of shadow IT is that as soon as it starts functioning, visibility becomes an issue and real-time threat identification is nearly impossible.
As the threats of data breaches and leakage are rising, the risks of non-compliance, legal sanctions, and reputational losses are escalating as well.
4. Secure Remote Workers
The Covid-19 crisis initiated and accelerated some of the fundamental changes, such as the use of BYOD and work from home policies. It is quite natural that the sharp increase in remote employees in turn increased the organization’s exposure.
Remote employees access company networks via their own mobile devices, and quite a few of them might not provide adequate protection against cybercriminals.
Managers need to teach their employees how to work with VPNs and firewalls to counter the risks of getting access to important information through Wi-Fi connections.
Remote workers also need to understand how to update own gadgets, secure the weak spots, and outdated applications, recognize phishing attacks, and adhere strictly to guidelines while connecting to organizational networks from home or other locations.
5. Implement Zero Trust Security
Over the next four years, the zero-trust market will have a value of approximately $ 67. 95 billion, which will increase at a CAGR of 16%. 9% since last year. Zero-trust is a security model that does not trust any of the components of an enterprise’s IT environment at all.
Zero-trust does not let the system slip through the cracks by assuming that every user is a threat actor. This means that when it comes to the IT ecosystem of an enterprise, every user must go through several checkpoints of security.
Least privilege: No user will be granted any permissions or access rights other than the direct job function they perform Constant
Verification: A single sign-on credential will not be sufficient to get permanent access to resources.
Besides the above mentioned, other principles of zero-trust security model are MFA, assume breach, visibility, constant monitoring, and JIT access.
6. Transform and Optimize Data Security
It is important to note that the primary motivation of threat actors is data exfiltration. This is a big issue because data is the most crucial asset for any company in today’s world.
It is crucial for businesses to always evaluate and adapt the strategies, technologies, and processes for protecting the data and assets deemed most valuable.
The most effective measures that can be employed include data backup, data encryption of both static and in-flow data, storage buckets patching, and integration of security measures at every stage of data management life cycle.
Businesses need to understand that the lack of data protection can also lead to compliance issues that may lead to millions of dollars in penalties.
7. Strengthen the Identity Pillar
A digital identity is effectively a means of accessing the enterprise’s internal and external environments, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid structures.
When employees and teams independently procure various cloud services at high rates, they bring in different identity management systems and practices into their organizations. Identity sprawl means the fast and unchecked increase of digital security identities.
To enhance the digital identity pillar of their cybersecurity plans, enterprises should focus on effective identity onboarding and offboarding procedures, effective identity management, the removal of inactive and outdated identities, and the promotion of cybersecurity risks involving identity.
8. Adopt Proactive Cybersecurity Measures
We are all familiar with the adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and this is especially true in the field of cybersecurity. Organizations should not ignore or trade off remediation capacities to enhance effective measures.
They have to focus and systematically enhance the quality of their active protection against cyber threats to lessen the risk of data breaches and the possible trauma from cyber incidents.
To move from a reactive to proactive cybersecurity, maintain round-the-clock infrastructure monitoring, address the vulnerabilities inherent to your company and external threats, and constantly evaluate and minimize risks.
Understand the avenues of attack, assess configurations, and work with internal and external teams for penetration testing.
9. Promote Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence Programs
Cybersecurity is at its best when it is a coordinated effort. In an enterprise, different security and information technology groups work collectively to mitigate the attacks from the threat actors.
Each threat event and each mitigation that a security team has to deal with makes them better prepared to handle future cyber threats.
The benefits of well-developed threat intelligence programs include the minimized chances of data breaches, efficient IT and cybersecurity spending, facilitated digital transformation, and, in the long run, improved revenues and business success.
Conclusion
In 2024, enterprises will possibly experience a wave of new cybersecurity threats. But there is a glimmer of hope because a strong cybersecurity plan effectively protects businesses from the worst cyber criminals.
The best way to maintain a robust cybersecurity posture is to ensure that none of the security measures outlined above works in silos. They must act in cooperation with each other and adhere to a great and complex business model of an enterprise.
The overall approach of achieving cybersecurity goals can prevent all the big threats and set the stage for further and faster growth.
