CYBERSECURITY PREDICTIONS FOR 2024

It is customary at the end of each year “n” to try to forecast what the year “n+1” will bring.

At Ghenova we also want to make our prediction for 2024, in terms of cybersecurity.

• The first thing we believe is that cybersecurity will continue to gain prominence in all types of projects. Whether in shipbuilding, renewable energy, communications, industry, engineering… cybersecurity requirements will permeate PPTs and PCAPs. In technical specifications, product cybersecurity clauses will multiply; and, in administrative specifications, requirements in terms of corporate cybersecurity, project cybersecurity, or supply chain cybersecurity (subcontractors and suppliers) will raise the bar, making cybersecurity in all these dimensions a decisive competitive advantage.
• AI will permeate all aspects of cyber security. On the bad guys’ side, generative AI, some of it specialised in creating malware, will enable individuals with very little technical knowledge and skills to carry out attacks of a certain sophistication, dramatically increasing the number of people who will make crime their primary livelihood. And those who already have knowledge and resources will see their capabilities multiply through the use of AI: development of undetectable malware, deepfakes, phishings and high-quality spams, generation and management of botnets, discovery of vulnerabilities… On the defensive side, AI will come as standard. From now on, any cybersecurity solution or technique will be labelled as intelligent: firewalls, sandboxes, antivirus, SIEMs, cyberrranges, inventory, event correlation, anomaly detection, vulnerability analysis, update management, threathunting, incident management, decision making… There will even be intelligent cyber threat intelligence.
• In terms of cyber-warfare and attacks perpetrated by state-actors, it is expected to be a particularly intense year, as the many tensions in the world will be amplified and transferred to cyberspace.
• On the legislative and regulatory level, it will also be an important year in our environment. The growing concern for the protection of cyberspace as a global commons and for the risks derived from the indiscriminate use of AI will be materialised in various regulations, such as the NIS2 Directive or the Cybersolidarity Law by 2024, which are in addition to the new AI regulation recently approved.
• We will see a marked increase in attacks on or through the supply chain, enabling everything from data theft to industrial espionage.
• The rise and global deployment of zero trust architectures will peak in 2024, causing substantial changes in the security model of organisations.
• The first cryptographic solutions resistant to quantum computing will see the light of day.
• SMEs will, at last, start to take a massive interest in cybersecurity, convinced that, if they do not do so, their survival will be at serious risk.
• The lack of professionals will continue to be a major problem and the struggle to secure the services of scarce professionals will lead to escalating salaries and even higher turnover rates.
• The importance of the CISO, or equivalent, will continue to increase. And, with it, the empowerment of corporate cybersecurity teams in large companies and organisations.