Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Navigating the Evolving IT and OT Cybersecurity Landscapes in 2024
By Almog Apirion, CEO & Co-Founder at Cyolo
This year, the cybersecurity industry witnessed a significant escalation in cyberattacks, as hackers leverage increasingly sophisticated tactics to infiltrate corporate networks. While familiar tactics like third-party breaches continued to plague organizations, 2023 also saw the rise of innovative human-centric methods that posed a significant challenge to defenders.
As we say goodbye to 2023 and anticipate the year ahead, the cybersecurity landscape is poised for significant transformation, driven by the increasing convergence of OT and IT environments, evolving threat vectors and changing regulatory landscapes. Let’s explore the key trends that will shape the future of cybersecurity and how organizations can adapt to stay ahead of the curve.
To address mounting pressure from the federal government to bolster zero-trust defenses, organizations will transition from compliance-centric security to customized, asset-focused zero trust strategies.
In 2024, we can expect organizations to prioritize crafting zero-trust strategies that align with their specific objectives and risks. Governments will exert even greater pressure on organizations to fortify their zero-trust strategy and prioritize the growing risks of third-party access and access to critical infrastructures. The challenge for organizations will be aligning government directives with practical security measures that genuinely enhance the protection of their core assets. To address this, companies will need to create robust processes that go beyond mere compliance checkboxes and superficial fixes.
As the threat landscape evolves, companies will no longer be content with simply meeting regulatory requirements. Instead, they will focus on creating tailored strategies that effectively implement the principles of zero trust within their unique operational contexts. A customized security approach with zero trust will become the key for TRUE strengthened access controls for all users, devices and applications.
Increased reliance on third parties will result in a standardized playbook for secure collaboration.
As businesses continue to expand and diversify their operations, they will increasingly turn to external vendors, suppliers and collaborative entities to drive innovation and efficiency. This is nothing new. However, in 2024, a standardized playbook for working with third parties will emerge.
This playbook will serve as a guiding framework, offering best practices and protocols for onboarding, managing and securing these external partnerships. As the complexity of inter-organizational relationships grows and regulations evolve – like, for example, the recent AI executive order -organizations will recognize the need for consistent, transparent and effective procedures to mitigate risks and streamline operations. In fact, these complexities will create a shift in the biggest risks CISOs are facing, pushing them to re-prioritize their security controls and redistribute their budgets based on the highest risk.
Secure access management and controls will play a pivotal role in implementing and enforcing these standards, ensuring that organizations can confidently navigate their expanding web of third-party collaborations while maintaining the highest levels of security and compliance.
In the coming year, as part of this playbook, we will see further standardization of tools as well. This will be driven by the need to consolidate capabilities in response to the varied tools used throughout the enterprise, especially those from third-party vendors in the technology and security stack. As threats evolve, controls such as identity enforcement, session recording, and just-in-time access will play a more critical role in the implementation of secure access.
The Risk of Physical Safety from OT/ICS Cyber Threats
Protecting workers from the physical safety threats imposed by cyberattacks will be a critical area of concern for organizations in 2024 and beyond. We’re already seeing cybercriminals breach sensitive geographical information impacting the physical safety of individuals such as the theft of school blueprints in Minneapolis. This same element of attack is being leveraged in industrial settings.
Just as malicious actors steal intelligence such as campus blueprints, alarm schematics and the placement of surveillance cameras, hackers in industrial settings steal and hack into devices capable of malfunctioning, or systems that serve different locations like energy or water supply – essentially causing serious harm to workers and largely impacting society as a whole. For example, workers can be seriously injured when a blast furnace or industrial boiler malfunctions from unauthorized interference, or people across locations could lose energy.
Security leaders in critical infrastructure settings will need to place more emphasis on securing OT/ICS environments, especially as the increase in technologies and machinery elevate the cyber threat to workers’ physical safety. As hackers continue to advance their attack methods in both IT and OT environments, security leaders will need to find the right balance between securing both systems, especially as these environments increasingly converge.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Almog Apirion is the CEO and co-founder of Cyolo, the first true Zero-Trust Access solution. In 2019, Almog and two of the world’s leading ethical hackers, Dedi Yarkoni and Eran Shmuely, founded Cyolo after realizing the need for organizations to easily and securely make their apps-legacy, custom, cloud, etc.-available from anywhere to employees and third parties. Almog spearheaded a Series B funding round of $60 million in 2022, raising Cyolo’s total capital to $85 million. He is currently leading the growth of Cyolo’s leadership and expediting the global expansion of its Zero-Trust Access solution. Prior to Cyolo, Almog was the Head of the Cyber Security Unit for the Israeli Navy and held the role of CISO at Orbotech.
