While 2023 presented many new cybersecurity challenges for enterprises to contend with, companies in 2024 are preparing for the future of cybersecurity threats. From AI-generated attacks to new types of ransomware, there has never been a more crucial time to prioritize cybersecurity than now.
Below, we’ll reveal the top five cyber attack trends you should look out for in 2024 and beyond.
Current cybersecurity threats that enterprises contend with are identity-based attacks.
Hackers attempting to obtain personal data are targeting organizations as the attacks become more sophisticated and complex. These attacks focus on accessing data and networks through human identities to steal, destroy, or take control of the identities.
Organizations must make sure they have, at the bare minimum, fundamental security layers to guard against these attacks. To do this, security teams need to keep an eye on how their organization's identity data and access privileges are being used.
One type of identity-based threat is Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks.
MITM attacks involve cybercriminals directly mimicking legitimate parties through website spoofing or placing themselves between two parties' channels of communication. After that, the attacks alter or reroute traffic to the threat actor’s nefarious location, where the threat actors can then access user accounts and data.
LockBit has been the most active (and successful) ransomware group in the past few years and doesn’t show signs of slowing down heading into 2024.
In 2023, LockBit successfully hacked over two times as many victims as renowned ransomware groups CL0P and BlackCat. By utilizing a wide team of administrators, developers, and a full cybercrime syndicate to support their attacks, LockBit launched roughly 1,700 attacks in 2023 in the U.S. Since 2020, LockBit earned around $91 million from extortion payments alone.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been in the headlines for many events recently, but not all of them are positive developments. AI has become an important tool for threat actors, launching one of the latest cyber attack trends: AI-driven attacks.
New risks that AI, particularly generative AI, pose include the following:
Data poisoning. Threat actors can use AI to help poison datasets and other AI models through SQL injections filled with malicious data. Malware-injected attacks can be especially harmful in industries such as healthcare, automotive, and transportation.
Privacy risks. Threat actors can acquire sensitive information after gaining access to the AI models of their targeted organization. For example, in healthcare, if an AI model or machine learning is used to organize or store patient data, threat actors could steal protected health information (PHI) about patients after compromising the AI model.
Phishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated as threat actors use social engineering methods and personalized messaging to trick targets into disclosing personal information or opening or clicking on malicious files.
Additionally, threat actors can use AI to generate phishing and smishing emails with content that closely resembles authentic emails in terms of language, tone, and style. As a result, phishing emails are getting more difficult to distinguish from legitimate emails, and generative AI is accelerating the progression of their complexity.
Threat actors are targeting IoT (Internet of Things) devices due to their rising ubiquity and the persistent absence of proper security layers. IoT devices are susceptible to brute force attacks, network-exploitation attacks, and malware, including Mirai.
Mirai attacks IoT devices, such as smart cameras and routers, to make them accessible to threat actors. The hackers can use these devices remotely via botnets to target computer systems that are connected to the devices by launching a barrage of denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
In 2023, there was a sharp increase in attacks from threat actors who exploited vulnerabilities in IoT devices to perform distributed denial-of-service attacks, steal data, and interfere with operations. As a result of these attacks, more security measures are required. Firmware upgrades and improving supply chain weaknesses are some ways companies can defend against IoT attacks.
As threats in cybersecurity continue to evolve due to the progression of AI and ransomware, it’s imperative to have appropriate security measures in place, as any of the attacks mentioned above can be catastrophic to any organization.
Tec-Refresh is here to help future-proof your organization from evolving cybersecurity threats and implement the best services for keeping your data safe.
To learn more about how we can help fortify your cybersecurity and protect your business, download our Managed IT & Security Services Brochure today.