Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2023. Read them in this 15th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Threat Actors Continue to Up the Ante
By Andy Syrewicze, Technical Evangelist at Hornetsecurity
At this stage I’m done with saying the past year has been “exciting” or “crazy” or [insert your chosen word here]. I’ll instead simply say that cybercriminals continue to make headway in today’s digital world, and they’re set to up the ante in the coming year. Let’s look at a few things supporting that statement.
These last few years, we’ve seen countless organizations adopt multi-factor authentication (MFA), which is an amazing thing. This step, however, hasn’t been the silver bullet that many business owners would like it to be. There have been several high-profile cases such as the Uber breach, where MFA was ultimately beaten via social engineering. Don’t get me wrong, some MFA is still better than no MFA. That said, threat actors know they must contend with MFA regularly now. As a result, we’re expected to see increased social engineering campaigns targeting MFA solutions as well as increased attacks specifically on mobile devices. Remember that for many people their mobile device is their second factor, making them a compelling target.
In addition to this we’ve seen some cases where Deepfake technology is now at a stage where organizations need to take the risk it creates into account for corporate security strategies. In fact, there have been a rash of Deepfake-powered attacks target both tech companies as well as financial institutions. For an example of how far these technologies have come in the last year, do a quick google search for Deepfake Tom Cruise and Deepfake Morgan Freeman. If the realism in those videos doesn’t keep you up at night, I’m not sure what will.
Finally, we’ve seen time and again where some of the best security solutions on the market are beaten simply by targeting the end-user. As such, organizations will need to start adopting a strong stance on creating a sustainable security culture. For many organizations this starts with next-gen end-user security awareness training. By incorporating this type of solution into corporate security strategies in 2023, companies will be better prepared for the threats mentioned here, and others in the coming year.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Syrewicze, Technical Evangelist at Hornetsecurity
Andy is a 20+ year IT pro specializing in Virtualization, Storage, Cloud, and Infrastructure. By day he’s a Technical Evangelist for Hornetsecurity, leading in technical content. By night he shares his IT knowledge online or over a cold beer. He holds the Microsoft MVP award in Cloud and Datacenter Management, and is one of few who is also a VMware vExpert.
