The 3 Major Cyberthreats of 2023: Fight it!

Navigating security online is always a struggle. The rapid rate of innovation along with the exposure to bad actors that the Internet provides means you need to work to stay up-to-date with cyber security. At Lightsand, our services are built around the protection we provide for our customer’s data, so upcoming threats are always in our crosshairs.

Looking at the year ahead, we see that many of the major news stories provide clues for cyberthreats in 2023. But there are also some larger, longer running trends that will continue to rear their ugly head through the year.

Let’s break down the major cyberthreats of 2023. That way, you’ll have the advantage in keeping your data and systems safe through the year.

The headlines tell us that the world of international politics is not as stable as it was only a year

or so ago. That matters, because the more that great powers butt heads, the more they’ll turn to

web-based attacks.

Obviously, this is especially important to keep in mind for private companies that manage important resources and, of course, government agencies. Although cyber-espionage is considered only a concern for the biggest players in an economy, that's not necessarily true.

For those who feel they are more “under the radar” — it’s all still worth keeping an eye on. These kinds of attacks usually show the cutting-edge of cyberthreats. But once they are developed in this realm of state-sponsored hacks, they quickly find their way into the hands of smaller scammers and thieves. That makes the current rise in geopolitical tension and conflict an important vector of cyberthreats to remain aware of through the coming year. By tracking how major corporations and governments are managing these threats, smaller organizations can be proactive.

That means this is really a powerful opportunity, if you can take advantage of it. We can definitely expect a rise in ransomware related to international conflict, especially the war in Ukraine. 2022 saw a massive increase in these kinds of attacks, and next year will likely see still more increase. Though the fall in value for cryptocurrencies over these last several months has cooled off small time ransomware, these big geopolitical events will more than make up for it.

We continue to negotiate the long switch from pandemic era policies to the new normal. It appears that more and more people will continue to work remotely for the foreseeable future, and this will probably be how many people work from here on out.

What does that mean for cyber security? There is a lot more sensitive data flowing, and business networks are now much harder for a single IT department to keep a handle on. People are using multiple devices at home to complete tasks, and they are sending work over networks that can’t be secured.

In short, corporate security perimeters are much harder to establish and maintain than ever before. Once upon a time, you would only have to focus on a single floor of offices, or maybe two or three locations. But a distributed workforce means you might have hundreds (orthousands) of individuals off on their own.

That makes solving Zero Trust systems a major priority for businesses everywhere. As long as large parts of the workforce are working remotely, cyberthreats to these professionals will increase. The Zero Trust model basically assumes that every single request is from outside the firewall. So identity has to be exhaustively authenticated, and access is always limited to the bare essentials at any given time.

Related to work from home is the ever growing Internet of things (IoT). People continue to fill their homes and offices with objects that record audio and video, collect data, and connect online. Like remote work, this sets up a lot more vulnerabilities, and places a lot of information security in the hands of the companies that sell you the device.

Tracking, analyzing, and preventing cyberattacks is a lot of work. There are only so many hours in a day, and there are countless instances of online threats. Luckily, artificial intelligence is proving to be more and more capable of helping humans in this critical work.

There appears to be a major advantage to this, with security teams implementing AI tools generally outperforming those who don’t. And as these approaches continue to be developed, they’ll improve in quality and reduce in price. But AI isn’t only a benefit to security. It can also be an advantage for the other side. The use of machine learning algorithms is just as helpful in producing new cyber attacks as it is for preventing them. Criminals can easily deploy AI tools to identify vulnerabilities in a target’s security system, and they can also automate tasks — like sending out a deluge of highly

personalized phishing attacks with the click of a button.

This arms race dynamic means that over the coming year, more and more products claiming to have some level of AI integration will increase. Of course, these will not all be made equal, and it’s a buyer-beware market. Just because a brand promises to use AI doesn’t mean they are doing it well.

Keeping strong cybersecurity through the coming year means staying up-to-date on where the threats are coming from. Geopolitical turmoil, the continued rise of remote work and the IoT, as well as improvements in AI form the most important sources for 2023.

But being prepared doesn’t mean you have to be paranoid. With the right tools and services, you can rest assured that your data is safe. Lightsand is a dedicated team focused on empowering you to collaborate at a distance without having to worry about cyberthreats. That’s why our reliable and secure systems standout as the leader in Storage Area Networks Extension.

With Lightsand, you have a partner that can help you bring your team together no matter where in the world they are.

What’s better, you won’t have to worry about the cyberthreats mentioned above, because you have a SAN provider that’s committed to keeping your workflow safe and dependable 100% of the time.