Websites, including associated emails, have become extremely vulnerable to hackers over the past two years as getting past your password and username has become more and more sophisticated and frankly, easier. What used to be a relatively safe and simple matter of purchasing a domain name from a reputable online domain brokerage, building a website, and making it viral on social media has now become a matter of cyber-security threats and online hack prevention.
Serious website hacks can not only damage your business and your online reputation, but they can also empty your wallet if you have a PayPal or Cash account attached to it. But new security software is officially taking aim at the hackers in 2022.
According to a new report out of the UK, the chief security officer of Secon has been examining the important reasons why businesses and organizations must address the many vulnerabilities with ongoing cyber-security threats and breaches too numerous to count.
With much of the world’s workforce now going back to the office environment in the wake of the lifting of many COVID-19 restrictions, there remains a significant amount of the global population who are either choosing to work from home or taking advantage of the new hybrid work model of part-time at home/part-time at the office.
Says the Secon security officer, this new “work-life shift” means organizations and businesses need to remain vigilant when it comes to cyber-security issues along with lingering vulnerabilities.
During the past two years, businesses have made the pivot to remote work and along with it, “accelerated cloud adoption.” This was engineered to provide support for business continuity as the global pandemic played out.
This widespread access from anywhere in the world might have proved convenient, but it also resulted in serious cyber-security gaps and vulnerabilities that are only now being addressed
With that clearly in mind, here are just a few of the cyber-security threats that are expected to be ramped up in 2024 and beyond.
Ransomware Threats
Ransomware threats are said to be having a continued negative impact on businesses and it, therefore, remains an ever-present danger. This has caused many companies to update their recovery and backup approaches with the end goal of being able to recover all data should a ransomware attack break down their digital barriers.
This new approach has helped many organizations avoid paying hefty ransoms. That said, ransomware prevails as one of the greatest risks to businesses in 2024.
Cloud Breaches
The Cloud was a godsend to companies during the pandemic since it assisted with improved agility via “expedited application roll-outs.” It also helped reduce the costs of doing business and therefore increased bottom lines.
But as the adoption of the Cloud continues to make an impact in 2022 and beyond, experts fully expect to realize an increase in data breaches and unauthorized access to gaps in security that are created by human error and misconfigurations.
As cloud adoption continues to increase throughout 2022, we expect to see an increase in unauthorized access and data breaches due to avoidable security gaps presented by misconfigurations and human error.
Vulnerability Abuses
The explosion of “zero-day exploits” are said to become one of the major issues for cyber-security operations teams to handle in 2022 and beyond, or so the experts attest. As a direct result of this, you can expect to realize the increased adoption of “Zero Trust” to assist businesses with eliminating their “attack surface,” the prevention of lateral movements cyber-security threats, and control of data access.
Increased Exact Domain Name Impersonation Phishing
Because it requires not a lot of effort for bad actors, along with an improved click rate, cyber-security experts are anticipating the increase in the usage of precise domain impersonation phishing emails in the post-pandemic world.
But as more companies and businesses shift to a DMARC (Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) rejection policy, an uptick in lookalike domain phishing is expected. Businesses can fight this problem by increasing user awareness training techniques in order to better identify these damaging emails.
Continuing Shortages of Cyber-SecuritySkills
Depleted company resources in the wake of the pandemic have resulted in the decreased ability to detect and respond accordingly to cyber-security threats. Risk has only increased over the past two years.
Therefore, the experts agree that there will be a noticeable increase in the number of businesses and organizations that will have no choice but to outsource their vulnerability management, including detection and response to cyber-security threats.
In theory, this will assist them with improving their cyber-security resilience. It will also enable restricted resources to focus more on business and organizational priorities.