Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024.  Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Wishing a Safe and Secure Cyber New Year - Tacking Growing 2024 Challenges

By Bindu Sundaresan, Director at AT&T Cybersecurity

The past 12 months have seen rapid changes within the cybersecurity landscape, and there are no signs of slowing down as 2024 progresses. From the increased sophistication of cyber attacks to ransomware's ongoing persistence, the cybersecurity industry continues to evolve and adapt to keep up with the latest threats. Unfortunately, the demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals continues to outpace the supply, which means, organizations are facing challenges in recruiting and retaining qualified personnel to address these growing threats.

Among these obstacles, I foresee growing challenges surrounding the implications of cyber insurance, the shifting role of the CISO, and the demands to adopt a Cybersecurity as a Service (CSaaS) model. 

Understanding the workings of a cyber insurance policy

As the threat landscape expands moving into 2024, one challenge cyber leaders must face, but may often be overlooked, surrounds demystifying what cyber insurance does and does not cover. With the cyber-insurance market stabilizing and becoming increasingly competitive, the rules are becoming more standardized and transparent. It's vital to get clarity around which cyber risk factors influence pricing the most and what areas of cyber defense need to improve in order for organizations to fully benefit from such insurance.

This is especially important when organizations are struggling to keep pace with the complexity introduced by digital technologies and processes, handling large volumes of alerts generated by various IT and Operational Technology (OT) systems, navigating a fragmented security vendor landscape with confusing messaging, managing a security talent shortage, and addressing sprawling security and technology debt.

2024's evolution of the CISO

Among ongoing digital transformation efforts, the role of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) within organizations has become transformational over the last year. It is now a position that leads cross-functional teams to match the speed and boldness of digital transformations with agile, forward-thinking security and privacy strategies, investments, and plans.

Looking ahead, a CISO's role is evolving even further into a risk management capacity, becoming increasingly vital in an era of evolving cyber threats. This position demands not only technological proficiency, but also strong leadership, effective communication, and a resilient mindset. In 2024, the contributions of CISOs and their teams will be critical in determining the success or failure of many organizations. This challenging role requires a blend of technical knowledge, strategic insight, management skills, and mental toughness. Those who succeed in this role will find themselves at the forefront of technology and organizational resilience, playing a key role in protecting assets, data, and business continuity in a dynamic, interconnected world. For such success, CISOs must continue to stop operating out of silos and build relationships with all business players, embedding 'scenario thinking' and responsiveness into organizational cyber functioning.

Capitalizing on the CSaaS model

With budgets tightening across the board and competition for a limited pool of IT and security talent growing fiercer, cyber as a service providers have become an optimal solution for many companies. I predicted this in 2023, and the same theme rings true for the coming year. Over the last year, cybersecurity has become an increasingly important aspect of doing business, with more and more companies falling victim to cyber-attacks each year. As a result, many businesses are turning to Cyber Security as a Service (CSaaS) solutions to protect themselves and their customers from cyber threats. 

CSaaS is a subscription model that offers organizations cybersecurity protection on demand. CSaaS can help organizations reduce the cost of ongoing security investments while allowing businesses to focus on what's really important to them. In response, knowing they can count on their partners to focus on specific vectors, internal security teams can concentrate on their core missions. This could be high-priority or critical items within security or something completely outside of cyber that simply needs more attention at a given time. Most importantly, the flexibility of CSaaS allows the services utilized to change over time and be periodically realigned to ensure the customer's business needs are being met.

While the road to optimal cybersecurity presents challenges in the year ahead, it also reveals solutions to protect a company's greatest assets. By facing these challenges straight on, companies can successfully work to protect against malicious actors and keep themselves safe and secure this cyber new year.

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