New threats and emerging technologies are changing the 2024 cybersecurity landscape. One example is the rapid rise of generative AI-driven capabilities of cyber criminals, such as phishing, malware, deepfakes. About half the experts surveyed in a recent World Economic Forum report, “Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2024,” agreed that generative AI will have the most significant impact on cybersecurity in the next two years.
“No country or organization is spared from cybercrime, yet many are direly underequipped to effectively face the threats,” said Jürgen Stock, secretary-general of INTERPOL in the report, prepared collaboratively with Accenture. “It is crucial that key stakeholders work collaboratively towards immediate, strategic actions that can help ensure a more secure and resilient global cyberspace.”
Despite these concerns, experts also highlighted an encouraging increase in focus on cybersecurity at the senior leadership level. “Cyber resilience is increasingly dependent on a C-suite team that closely collaborates and communicates security priorities across the business and the industry,” said Paolo Dal Cin, global lead, Accenture Security. “This approach provides a clear view of cyber risks and allows security to be embedded from the start in all strategic business priorities as well as across third parties, vendors and suppliers.”
Attacking mobile devices
Cyber criminals are increasingly focusing on mobile endpoints as a means of gaining credentials and penetrating an organization’s database, according to experts at a BrightTalk seminar, “Cybersecurity Predictions for 2024: Emerging Threats and Best Practices,” sponsored by Lookout.
“Attackers will send a link or SMS to the smartphone, because users are more likely to do the wrong thing,” said Aaron Cockerill, EVP product, Lookout. “They want to steal the credentials of IT professionals and execs who have access to large datasets which they can download and use for extortion. This type of attack doesn’t involve any malware, and the dwell time in your system is very short compared with other types of breaches.”
An attacker who impersonates the CEO might send a bogus link to join a video conference, and steal the credentials after an IT professional logs in. “These types of attacks are happening on mobile because organizations don’t have any visibility or control of devices,” said David Richardson, VP endpoint and threat intelligence.” Obviously, user training and education on the latest scams is essential. But organizations also need to think about threat detection technologies as well.”
Moving to the cloud
Moving data to the cloud can have security advantages, as decreasing number of on-premise servers offers fewer attack opportunities, according to Cockerill. In general, the cloud infrastructure is well maintained, he added.
However, enterprises may lack visibility into data stored and analyzed in the cloud, added Sundaram Lakshmanan, CTO, Lookout. He said organizations should look to secure endpoints, such as replacing VPN access with ZTNA (zero trust network access).
Another issue involves training generative AI models using an organization’s proprietary data, said Cockerill. “If you are submitting customer lists to ChatGPT, for instance, they become ‘public’ information incorporated into the answers generated by queries,” he said. “The answer is to adopt intelligent, secure web gateways that can determine if data submitted by users would be identified as sensitive by the company.”
Richardson added that generative AI tools are trained to be helpful with ethical guidelines, but they can assist cyber criminals as well. Organizations need to stay current with these evolving tools to stay ahead of attackers, he added.
The growing adoption of cybersecurity insurance could play a positive role in raising C-suite awareness of the importance of investing in protective measures, said Cockerill. He added, “CEOs and directors now understand that losing access to your email for half an hour is justified if it stops a breach in the data base.”
Headquartered in Frisco, Texas, INEMSOFT is a software development company specializing in unified communications, enterprise applications and mission-critical solutions. An Avaya DevConnect Technology Partner since 2001, iNEMSOFT has deployed its software technology to many of Avaya’s largest North American customers, including Class I and II railroads, commercial airlines, public safety and other government agencies, universities, utilities, healthcare and financial institutions.
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