Sophisticated phishing, vishing, and ransomware threats drive rising cybersecurity trends for 2023. There are increasing threats toward a larger target area, but with some intelligent analysis, enterprises can protect their businesses logically.
In recent years, digital businesses have seen many innovative cybersecurity threats. The ugly threat actors are rapidly expanding their field of targets by advancing with tools and methodologies. This shows no signs that cybercriminals will slow down in 2023 and beyond. Here are the most anticipated cybersecurity trends for 2023 that businesses may face. They need to prepare with strong preventive measures, and these inputs will help in building stringent standards to secure enterprises at scale.
Cybersecurity Trends in 2023
Open Source Vulnerabilities will be More in Code Bases
Forbes blog, Cybersecurity Trends & Statistics For 2023; What You Need To Know, suggests that at least one open-source vulnerability was 1found in 84% of code bases. Since most software application developers rely on open-source code is one of the reasons for significant cybersecurity issues to address in 2023 and the years coming forth.
Open source code base is prone to many known and unknown vulnerabilities that organizations usually fail to identify, leaving them vulnerable to threats. The risks become significant because many organizations still practice legacy or outdated versions of open-source operating systems.
Threat actors take advantage of code vulnerabilities and open-source flaws through zero-day exploits. The threat attacks steal confidential data by using file-transfer software. Open source vulnerabilities will be one of the rising cybersecurity threat trends in 2023 and beyond. So, to avoid such vulnerability exploits, businesses need to keep updating the codes and use software that prevents threats to attack codes. In addition, companies should conduct regular testing, which is a critical way to map open-source systems and organize them to be more cyber-secure.
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Phishing Continues to be Preferred Method for Hackers in 2023
Phishing is still one of the tools of choice for many threat attackers. It will remain one of the primary cybersecurity trends for 2023. Spreading malware is one of the easiest techniques of attackers to exfiltrate valuable data of organizations. Phishing appears as a standard personal email, and there are higher chances of clicking, which gives them a way to enter into business systems, websites, or other sources.
Since Microsoft began blocking macros in 2022, threat actors have experimented with many phishing techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs). These include legacy file types such as virtual hard disk (VHD), compiled HTML (CHM), and OneNote (.one). Phishing email numbers increased significantly in January 2023. Attackers use emails to attempt malware attacks, including Redline, Doublebcak, and AgentTesla. They are mainly designed to steal information from usernames and passwords.
According to Forbes’ study in Cybersecurity Trends & Statistics For 2023, the highest rate of mobile phishing was recorded in 2022, making history! The attacks were on 210 million plus devices, 175 million apps, and four million URLs daily.
Technological advancements have made threat attackers smarter, and they are discovering novel ways to phish organizations. Attackers phish organizational data in multiple ways that fall into these phishing types, significantly mobile phishing, including vishing (voice phishing), smishing (SMS phishing), and quishing (QR phishing). The damage to businesses is colossal. In the same Forbes study Cybersecurity Trends & Statistics For 2023, in 2022, 76% of organizations were under a ransomware attack, out of which 64% were infected in real time. Only 50% of these organizations could retrieve their data after paying for the ransomware.
In addition, cybercriminals use the Microsoft brand name in phishing attacks, and the attackers used more than 30 million messages using the brand and mentioned products such as Office or OneDrive to customers as phishing company data.
Phishing is an alarming cybersecurity trend as they are penetrating financial areas of businesses, which will be increasing in the coming years. In Kaspersky’s report on Financial threats in 2021, SpyEye, known as a “bank Trojan,” a malware tool, is grabbing capabilities to exploit banking. Businesses can train employees to identify potential phishing emails. This is the first step towards prevention. Fraudsters have developed more sophisticatedly, and employees must keep up with the new paradigm.
Supply Chain Attacks and DDoS Attacks Will Soar as Costly Threat
Cybercriminals are looking for ways to breach standard multi-factor authentication technologies. Most organizations use weak authentication methods, leaving many vulnerable areas for threat actors to attack data structures. This indicates that open-source codes are the current source of attacks. Threat attackers upload malicious packages into open-source repositories to attack.
Global events further complicate supply chain attacks and the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) threat landscape. Because businesses are now interconnected and reliant on technologies to gain information and exchange insights and services, supply chain attacks are not diminishing in the coming years.
Supply chain threat attacks have become self-propagating malware that spreads across the intended target.
Supply chain and DDoS attacks are cybersecurity trends that will increase in 2023 and beyond. Organizations can avoid these threats by keeping devices and applications updated. This mandates employees to apply security measures. Doing this may ensure proper identification of vulnerabilities and call for preventive actions on time.
Business Email Compromise (BEC) Threats
Compromised business emails will become an increasing threat in 2023. BEC threats involve fake CEO emails that use common CEO phrases, resulting in a high clickable link rate. Such links contain threat attacks that penetrate system data, resulting in breaches. Other ways include executing voice phishing. BEC threats also occur through free email services companies use to run their campaigns.
Business email compromise threats are no longer restricted to traditional email versions. Attackers continuously find new ways to conduct email threats, and organizations must prepare stringent defensive measures to mitigate the threats. They actively leverage collaboration tools beyond emails, including mobile messaging and chats, and popular cloud-based applications such as LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Twitter, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and others to carry out attacks. Business emails have been a top target of threat attackers looking at the attack patterns.
According to Businesswire news, ‘IRONSCALES and Osterman Research Shows Threat of Business Email Compromise’ and its key findings show that BEC threats are growing each year, and it projects to be twice as high as a phishing threat. Almost 93% of organizations experienced one or more BEC attacks in the previous twelve months. 62% face three or more episodes of different variants during the same month.
43.3% of large enterprises expect these BEC attacks to grow over the next 12 months in 2023. Many organizations also stated that they are frequently encountering newer variants of BEC attacks, including fraudulent SMS messages (36%), social media connection requests (28%), and phone calls (22%).
Accordingly, organizations must build a corporate risk management strategy and vulnerability framework that identifies digital assets and data requiring protection, including confidential emails.
Also Read: Sophos Patches Web Security Appliance for Critical Code Execution Vulnerability
Identity Theft Trend is Rising
The expansion of threats in the digital realm is increasing, and one of the most significant online threats is Identity theft, which is a threat attack from the high use of devices and cloud networks in the wake of remote and hybrid work culture. As per The Identity Theft Research Center (ITRC) Annual Data Breach Report, 2022, the identity theft threat recorded being the second-highest number of data compromises in the U.S. in 2022. It impacted at least 422 million employees. ID threat is one way of data theft, which is a significant business asset.
Cases of ID theft increased post-pandemic, and companies have incurred substantial financial losses. While ransomware gets more attention, identity theft remains much easier to pull off the threat landscape and monetize. Social information, credit card numbers, and other personal identity factors are majorly stolen and sold on the dark web or used by criminals for quick and easy profit. There are no broad remedies to identity theft, but there are actions that can enable companies to help deter the threats. Threat attackers continue to learn new ways to bypass protections, as much of business data remains exposed. For this, security leaders must ensure that data is safe under stringent protection by having multiple authentication access.
What Businesses May Expect with Cybersecurity Trends
The cybersecurity trends in 2023 will make organizations smarter about installing more security measures protecting their assets to avoid added expenditures. With infrastructure security a significant part of almost every organization today, it will be essential for security teams to scrutinize threat gaps and vulnerabilities actively. Cybersecurity technologies will equip with advanced tools with which leaders will take comprehensive approaches to protect business infrastructure, including securing data and information, running risk analysis and mitigation, architecting cloud-based security, and achieving compliance.
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