John and Dray from Huntress kicked off the new year by sharing their predictions regarding the threats and insights trending in 2023. The first of five key trusted knowledge observations (TKO) is Phishing.
Cyber attackers will continue to use the economic crisis and political tie-in’s to phish users; a popular method will include documents with catchy titles or content like “Layoffs 2023”, or by using attachments or links leveraging current topics. The phishing efforts and social engineering tactics are a reminder that now is an important time to start and continue security awareness training for employees. The second TKO is Dark Web Marketing, where cybercriminals are becoming more innovative with how they advertise their products and rework their marketing operations to look more legitimate. They can include business models, organization hierarchies, and ways to handle grievances among themselves in darknet forums. In reality, they are for-profit, making money by selling ransomware-as-a-service.
Third on the list is Cybercriminal Insider Threats; hackers can screw up the plans of another hacker group they are disgruntled with or competing against. This usually occurs in the darkweb in moderated forums, but sometimes leaks to the regular internet for anybody to see. The fourth TKO is Burnout, which is an issue at all stages of cybersecurity practitioners’ as well as pre-careers. Cybersecurity burnout will fuel the widening of the workforce/skills gap; as threats increase, so will burnout, and companies need to prioritize the well-being of their employees’.
Last on the list is Acronym Acropolis as more acronyms are added to the “alphabet soup” of the cybersecurity industry. There are already many popular acronyms, and as the list continues to grow, it is important to stay calm, and make sure you understand what everything actually means. Learn more details about the 2023 predictions from Huntress here.
