Keeping your business safe in this modern, digital age is no easy feat. Where once the biggest security concern may have been physical theft and espionage, as technologies have developed, so have the techniques that attackers and bad actors are using to compromise your business. And these attacks are becoming ever more sophisticated as time goes on and cyberattackers find new ways to leverage technologies to their advantage.
It’s not enough to put cybersecurity measures in place and expect them to last. You need to be vigilant, to think about the ways that cyber threats are evolving and developing, and how best to keep your company safe.
With this in mind, I gathered our team of dedicated IT professionals together and asked them about the state of cybersecurity in the world today, and where they see it going in the year (and years) ahead. This is our SOLID prediction for cybersecurity in 2024 and beyond.
Why Is It Important To Understand Cybersecurity Predictions?
Before we dive into our cybersecurity prediction, let’s take a moment to chat about why predictions are relevant for businesses. You need to understand that this is more than simply navel gazing or looking into a crystal ball for the sake of it.
Thinking about the future is a critical part of doing business. And gaining an understanding of the latest cybersecurity best practices can help your business to better prepare, not only for the year ahead, but for many years to come.
As a business, you need to find new ways to protect yourself, your operations, your data and your users from cyberattacks. The cybersecurity techniques of the past are no longer as effective as they used to be, and you need to stay up to date with the latest trends to ensure that you’re protecting your business in the best possible ways.
What Are The Cybersecurity Trends We Can Expect To See In 2024?
When putting together our prediction for cybersecurity in 2024, I gathered the Solid Systems IT Pros together, and asked them an important question: What cybersecurity trends do we expect to grow in 2024, and what advancements do you think we’re going to see?
Why did our ask our IT Pros in particular? They are the backbone of our business – the humans who work with our clients on a daily basis and see first-hand the challenges that their businesses face. But more than that, at Solid Systems, we believe in consistent growth, in always learning and challenging ourselves. And part of that means staying up to date with the latest IT news and trends, following thought leaders in the field and absorbing their knowledge, and training themselves not only in the latest cybersecurity threats, but the best ways to avoid them as well.
So what areas do they think are going to be important in cybersecurity in the next 12 months and beyond? Here is their cybersecurity prediction:
• Artificial Intelligence Advancing Cybersecurity Efforts
Melvin, one of our Human Acceleration Programme (HAP) Pros, was one of the first to jump in with his input: “For me, when I look at cybersecurity’s growth and more advanced implementations in protecting businesses and their digital assets, I see AI playing a huge role, working in apps and software security in particular.”
And Melvin isn’t the only one to see the advances that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making in the field of cybersecurity. “With the emergence of AI in our lives, I believe that it will be used to boost cybersecurity efforts with its’ advanced capabilities to detect and prevent cyberattacks,” agrees IT Pro, Jabu.
In fact, AI was one of the biggest talking points for all of our IT Pros. There were long discussions about how it’s not only enhancing the productivity of the humans behind the businesses we work with, but also helping even our own Pros to expand their skills and knowledge bases.
A perfect example of how AI is being put to use is the way that companies like Microsoft are leveraging AI and machine learning to monitor business systems for unauthorised activity, alerting IT teams to attempted attacks before the attackers can successfully infiltrate systems. As Irfaan, one of our experienced IT Pros explains, “AI is taking centre stage to outsmart threats and streamline our defences.”
• Attacks On AI Platforms
“But,” Irfaan continues, “it’s not all smooth sailing. As we lean on AI, we also open new doors for the bad guys.”
As much as AI is helping businesses to protect themselves, cyberattackers are also seeing it as a tool in their own arsenal. A great example that Waldo, another experienced IT Pro in our Cape Town office, points out is the danger that generative AI tools are posing to data security. As more people are using tools like ChatGPT, it is gathering stores of information which a savvy attacker can then take advantage of. And the data being provided to the platform isn’t always innocuous – users are often uploading business files for analysis or using confidential information without realising the implications that it can have for data privacy.
“If I were an attacker”, says Lyndon (and we’re glad he’s part of our HAP initiative instead!), “I would target or take advantage of the power of AI, since I know people will rely on it more often as time progresses.”
• More Sophisticated Cyberattacks
Artificial intelligence may be one tool in attackers’ arsenals, but they are finding more and more tools available to them as technologies advance.
“Something that will never slow down is increasing attacks when it comes to cyberspace,” explains Waldo. “Attackers constantly develop new techniques and strategies to breach systems and steal information or disrupt services.”
To prove his point, the conversation shifts to a new form of attack that has been rising in prominence over the past few months in particular: deepfake videos and calls. “It’s extremely difficult to determine the validity of these recordings,” says Waldo, as we listen to an attorney in Philadelphia detailing how an attacker used his son’s voice to try and scam him into paying them $9000.
While in this particular case, the attack was personal in nature rather than business-oriented, it’s easy to see how these kinds of deepfake efforts will feed into the social engineering attacks that have also been gaining notoriety. Instead of getting an email claiming to come from a colleague or your boss, you might soon be getting phone calls with their voices, asking you to, in an example of an attempted attack that we at SOLID experienced, buy iTunes vouchers totalling thousands of Rands.
• New Ways to Protect Your Digital Presence
With threats coming from so many different angles, and getting more and more sophisticated, one thing that almost all of our IT Pros agreed on is that we’re going to have to find new and more advanced ways of protecting our digital presence, both as companies, and as individuals.
“The shift to remote IT isn’t just a trend, it’s our new reality,” says Irfaan. “And it’s bringing its own set of security headaches. Plus, our mobile obsession is turning phones into gold mines for hackers. It’s a reminder for us to stay on our toes, adapt, and keep our digital shields up and ready!”
And how exactly are we going to do that? Well, Skhumba, one of the newest additions to the SOLID team of IT pros had a few ideas: “We’ll see more advanced authentication methods being used to strengthen security and better ways and tools for faster response whenever incidents crop up.”
• Investment in Cyber Insurance
One area in particular that HAP Pro, Zusiphe, sees picking up in 2024 is the uptake of cyber insurance – a relatively new concept that is gaining ground with businesses that take the threat of cybersecurity seriously.
“It’s the result of all the cybersecurity crimes happening,” Zusiphe explains. “Cyber insurance is a big benefit to small and medium businesses, because they don’t have enough resources to invest in adequate measures of security.”
And it’s not just a budgetary constraint, Zusiphe continues. It’s the fact that smaller businesses don’t have IT teams behind them to help them implement advanced security techniques, or to effectively monitor and maintain their systems, opening them up to vulnerabilities. And because these businesses don’t have the tools, the people, or the money to focus on putting cybersecurity prevention methods in place, the next best option is to try and protect themselves from the financial fallout from a cyberattack with cyber or data breach insurance.
“It costs businesses a fortune when an attack happens. So, having this insurance will cover things like loss or damage of data and failure or malfunction of equipment. It provides them with the financial backing they need to deal with such terrible occasions.”
• The Highlighted Importance of Training
Another area that the SOLID team agrees has always been important, but is going to be a focus for businesses in the coming years, is training.
“User awareness is more crucial than ever to reduce the human factor as a vulnerability,” explains Jabu, alluding to a 2020 study where it was found that 88% of data breaches are caused by human error.
The more the humans behind your business understand the impact that their actions have, and their role in protecting you against cybersecurity attacks, the better prepared they’ll be to not only recognise potential attacks, but avoid them altogether. There are such simple personal cyber hygiene steps that your employees can take, but they just don’t know about them. By focussing on training and awareness, you can see those steps becoming routine, and reduce the risk of cyberattacks enormously.
Where Does Solid Systems Fit In?
Before wrapping up our discussion on the prediction for cybersecurity in 2024, there was one final point to address. How could Solid Systems help the companies that we work with in dealing with the upcoming cybersecurity challenges?
For one thing, the managed IT services that we offer help businesses to adopt advanced technologies like AI in the right ways to help them reach their business goals and secure their operations, while minimising the risk from using them. And the cybersecurity solutions that we offer are relatively affordable for SMEs, especially when compared to the cost of hiring an internal team to manage your systems.
But more than that, the training that we offer adds so much value to the businesses we support. It helps companies to prepare themselves for sophisticated cyberattacks, and significantly reduces the risk of, for example, your humans uploading confidential information into a generative AI platform. When the humans behind your business have a thorough understanding of the cybersecurity risks that you are facing, it is substantially easier for them to address those risks in their own practices. And when your company is working with a technology partner that is focussed on the humans behind your business as well as the technologies that you’re using, the natural result is going to be both enhanced security for your operations, and a positive impact on your humans’ working lives.
If you want to learn more about the cybersecurity services that we offer to businesses in South Africa and the UK, or want to chat to us about your unique business needs, schedule an IT consult with our Sales team today.
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