2024 Cybersecurity Predictions and Key Risks

Cybersecurity risks increase every year and bludgeon victims who fail to prepare properly. It can feel like crossing a major highway while blindfolded. Many never see the catastrophe about to happen, until it occurs. Cybersecurity predictions offer a glimpse at the dangerous oncoming traffic and help leaders develop strategies to navigate their journey safely. If we blindly step off the curb it will eventually end poorly when the luck runs out. For those interested in a better understanding of the oncoming risks, this is the information you are looking for.

Some dangers are familiar and persistent. We know the pool of threats and attackers will increase, more hacks will occur, credentials will be haphazardly mismanaged, disinformation will run rampant, new buzzwords and acronyms will be born, troves of data will be harvested, the battle to keep technology patched will continue to be problematic, ransomware and cybercrime will continue to thrive, and the headlines will be regularly filled with sad stories of digital victimization. This is the normal cadence the industry expects and although difficult to keep pace, the cybersecurity world is able to tread these waters.

Beyond the expected, we must also keep watch for the unpleasant surprises that can severely disrupt the security, trust, and capabilities of our digital world. Often a combination of disruptive technologies, lagging risk behavior trends, shifts in threat actor capabilities or focus, greater expectations for cybersecurity, and new regulatory structures emerge to wreak havoc. This year is no different but the details continue to be important.

Those in cybersecurity who fail to look ahead will be crushed by what they don’t see coming. Cybersecurity predictions provide leadership insights into what preparations and adaptations should be considered before a crisis occurs. So, let’s explore what 2024 and beyond has in store for all of us in the digital world.

Prelude:

Cybersecurity is a notoriously unpredictable and chaotic industry where attackers set the tempo for innovation, investment, and anticipate a response by defenders. This leads to sub-optimal situations where cybersecurity professionals largely react to the exploitations of malicious actors. Ironically, investing in preventative measures is the most efficient stratagem, but understanding what will be the most effective is dependent on accurately forecasting how the risks will manifest in the future.

This demand leads to the development of cybersecurity predictions which must take into account underlying drivers of the attackers, defenders, and technology where the battles will play out. There is a method to the madness of trying to forecast such a complex and muddled industry. I have followed a process over the years to identify significant trends that will unfold and contract those with industry concerns that I believe will not come to fruition. The goal is simple — to help organizations make better cybersecurity strategic organization, investment, and resource allocation decisions to maximize the value and help them manage to the most optimal level of security risk.

For this year’s predictions, a common theme emerged around significant investment and capabilities of a specific threat archetype, the aggressive nation-states, that represents a catalyst that profoundly influences what attackers can accomplish and the resulting impacts on the overall digital ecosystem. Aggressive nations have a ripple effect on the entire cybersecurity industry.

I first explored and predicted the impacts several years ago and called out multiple shifts for the 2023 predictions. This year my predictions extrapolate to the next evolution of these activities and the wake they leave behind. I have concluded the increasing involvement of offensive nation-states directly supports most of the 2024 cybersecurity predictions. We are in the midst of a quiet leap forward for attackers that represents a significant challenge for cybersecurity professionals to manage the elevated levels of digital risk.

024 Cybersecurity Predictions:

1. Nation-State attack dominance now underpins the capabilities, growth, and impacts of the cybersecurity industry

Nation-state investment, innovation, and willingness to conduct complex attacks are the catalyst that underpins the advancement of malicious capabilities and empowers all levels of activity across the spectrum of cyber threat archetypes.