Cyber Security Trends You need to Keep on in 2023

 Some factors will affect the way corporate executives strengthen digital defense in 2023, and network security remains the top priority. The number of blackmail software attacks is growing, and the zero-trust model is becoming more and more popular. As the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is continuing, there are more network attacks supported at the national level than ever before.

More and more enterprises are using network technology to achieve operational automation and generate a large amount of data on the Internet. However, it also brings a series of Internet security risks, including data leakage and theft, which are common events for enterprises and individuals. 90% of the data leakage events in the first quarter of 2022 are caused by network attacks.

Network security personnel responsible for security and risk management are at a turning point, because the digital footprint of enterprises is growing, and centralized network security control measures become useless. The trend of hybrid work and digital business operations in cloud computing brings new threats. At the same time, the complex blackmail software, network attacks on the digital supply chain, and deep-rooted weaknesses exposed the technology gap and the lack of skilled workers to meet the challenges.

Understanding the major trends in cybersecurity can help people better respond to emerging threats and enhance their role. Let's explore these trends.

Continuous phishing

The most common security risk faced by the IT industry is phishing. Today, many people are still trapped by phishing emails. Hackers use increasingly sophisticated technologies to generate business e-mail disclosure attacks and malicious web addresses. Network hackers have increased their complexity through investigation.

At the same time, the methods of network attackers have become more complex. They have begun to investigate potential victims to collect information to improve the success rate of phishing attacks. They are trying to make attacks more targeted and effective. A bait attack is a method used by network attackers to test email addresses and see who will react.

According to a recently released survey report, among 10500 enterprises surveyed, about 35% of them will suffer at least one bait attack in September 2021, and each company will have three different mailboxes receiving such information on average. In addition, during the period from August 2020 to July 2021, phishing attacks against infrastructure, transportation, financial services, and other industry organizations accounted for 57% of all blackmail software attacks. In the 2020 survey, this proportion was only 18%.

Fortunately, the network filtering technology has improved significantly. The email usually comes from a trusted source, such as a Gmail account. This is why it is crucial to educate employees to clearly identify cyber-attacks and not respond. AI-based defense is much more effective. To defend against such network attacks, it uses information collected from various sources, including communication diagrams, reputation systems, and network-level analysis.

Problems of Digital Supply Chain

When the products, services, or technologies provided by suppliers to customers are attacked by hackers and pose a threat to customer groups, they are attacked by the supply chain. This may be because the supplier's email account is fraudulently used for social engineering purposes or to increase the likelihood of malware infection. More complex network attacks can use the privileged access of the supplier network to invade the target network.

One example comes from the software supplier SolarWinds, whose supply chain for a software system was attacked at the end of December last year. Network attackers modified the signed version of the company's software with malicious software, and then used the software to infect 18000 private enterprises and government agencies. Once it is installed in the target operating environment, the virus will spread to a larger attack vector.

According to the data released by Gartner, by 2025, the number of enterprises facing attacks on the software supply chain will be three times that of 2021. To prioritize digital supply chain risks and put pressure on suppliers to demonstrate security best practices, security and risk management professionals must work with other departments on security.

Network security grid and distributed method

No matter whether the enterprise's business assets are in the internal deployment facilities, data centers, or cloud platforms, enterprises can use the network security grid method to deploy and integrate security: this is a contemporary conceptual approach to security architecture. By implementing the network security grid architecture, enterprises can reduce the loss of a single security event by an average of 90% in the next few years.

This concept will become more important as more and more enterprises shift their activities to cloud computing infrastructure and multi-cloud environments. The network security grid is structurally composed of multiple security control layers, which protect enterprises from various attacks, including malware, viruses, phishing attacks, etc. In theory, the higher the grid level, the better IT security, and network threat protection can be provided.

In general, the network security network is built by combining several different technologies, including internal firewalls, cloud-based security services, and externally managed security service providers. These solutions can be combined to cover all aspects of the enterprise. Compared with traditional point solutions, the goal is to achieve continuous visibility of traffic across the entire network to provide superior protection.

To support the goal of digital companies, with the increasing workload of the position of Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), industry-leading enterprises have begun to create CISO offices to support decentralized network decisions. Although cybersecurity directors are placed in different departments, the Chief Information Security Officer and the central functions of the enterprise may still be responsible for policy formulation.

It must be remembered that most data leakage incidents still involve human errors, which proves that traditional security awareness training methods are still insufficient. With the right approach and adequate budget, modern enterprises must abandon traditional efforts based on compliance awareness and support comprehensive behavior and cultural change initiatives that encourage safer work practices.