KnowBe4 predicts rise in 'catastrophic' attacks on CI
KnowBe4, the provider of the security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, has announced its 2023 cybersecurity predictions from its team of industry experts.
The top five predicted cybersecurity trends for 2023 include:
A rise in catastrophic attacks on critical infrastructure
It is also likely that a major outage will occur due to critical infrastructure being compromised, especially given the ongoing war in the Ukraine with Russia. This could have the potential to have societal and economic impacts for a large number of people or even an entire nation. A global recession and rising cost of living may also result in digital civil disobedience occurring in the form of people attacking their own government sites or national infrastructure as a form of protest.
Dangerous deepfake attacks will become more convincing and damage reputations
Deepfakes are a dangerous tool used to build a level of trust, convincing unsuspecting people to accept the words and actions of someone at face value. Organisations do not have a deep level of understanding about the dangers this can present regarding reputation and thus do not yet train their employees enough on the topic, according to KnowBe4.
Larger attack surface introduces new threats with the Metaverse
There is an increasing number of threat vectors that are subsequently creating a larger attack surface, making it more difficult to adequately protect organisations worldwide. With the proliferation of the Metaverse, there are more opportunities for cyber criminals to perpetrate attacks.
A shift in focus to creating a security culture within organisations
The need for security awareness training is now clear to most organisations and they are starting to evolve from just training to additional emphasis on behaviour and culture, the company states.
There has been a positive momentum toward building a strong security culture globally that involves support from executives and the employee base as a whole. A new social engineering battleground purported by an increase in social media scams Social media scams will blossom, putting friends, family, organisations and colleagues at risk.
According to KnowBe4, with the ever-growing industry of social media commerce and marketplaces, people will be relying even more on indicators of trust, such as how many connections an account has and how long the account has been active, making them susceptible to scams that use stolen social media accounts to trick individuals and organisations. Also, with official verification now for sale for a small fee on various platforms, scammers are sure to take advantage.
Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4, comments on the findings, "This list of predictions in cybersecurity trends has been gathered from our global group of experts who have decades of experience in the cybersecurity field. They are at the forefront of what is happening in the industry, constantly following trends and staying up to date on the latest threats, tools and techniques.
"Many of them noted a fundamental shift in focus for organisations beyond security awareness training alone to striving for a strong security culture that is driven by measurable behavioural change. Also, social engineering will continue to dominate as an overwhelmingly successful method for cybercriminals to execute attacks."
