Cybersecurity In 2024: Five Predictions From Palo Alto Networks

Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks has released its cybersecurity predictions for 2024, offering five insights to help enterprises secure the cyber landscape.

According to Palo Alto Networks, even mature organisations that are invested heavily in cybersecurity fell victim to cyberattacks in 2023. This was due to the tenacity and ingenuity of attackers, who exploited cyber hygiene issues or found novel ways to compromise legacy defences.

“Going into 2024, highly motivated cybercriminals, nation state attackers and hacktivists will continue to innovate, expand and exploit. We could and should definitely address the complexity of our security capabilities with AI to make them more effective and cost efficient,” said Ian Lim, field chief security officer, Palo Alto Networks.

The cybersecurity trends for 2024 are:

Hacktivism

Hacktivists will attempt to reach millions of people in the run-up to important events like the Olympics, the Euros and various elections around the globe. The majority of hacktivist attacks use distributed denial-of-service techniques. For instance, hacktivists reportedly targeted over 600 websites owned by government and private organisations during the G20 Summit in India by using DDoS assaults, data leaks and defacements.

In 2024, organisations should assess their risk profile in light of the changing threat environment and make sure that they are protected against hacktivism and nation-state attacks along with financially motivated cyber threats.

For Good And Bad: AI In Cybersecurity

Cyber criminals are using generative artificial intelligence in new ways, including deepfake and voice technology, to scam organisations and people alike. Businesses using the technology have to be cautious about the risks associated with it.

The maturation of how enterprise-level use of generative AI is protected is one of the trends anticipated in 2024, with security controls, vulnerability management and threat monitoring embedded into the AI lifecycle. Also, cybersecurity capabilities will become more integrated with generative AI because of its ability to efficiently surmise security events.

Operational Technology Remains Vulnerable

Operational technology will continue to be vulnerable to cyber threats because of its importance to industrial organisations. With OT connected to IT and the cloud, the attack surface has expanded, increasing the risk to OT networks. At the same time, organisations are short of solutions that address the specific demands of OT professionals.

Zero-trust architecture will be important for protecting OT systems from threats. The year 2024 will witness organisations investing in OT cybersecurity maturity to protect their most important business systems and manage the rising risk.

Cybersecurity Consolidation

While attackers only need a few hours to find and exploit vulnerabilities, security teams take approximately six days to resolve a security alert, with 60% of organisations taking longer than four days. Mean time to detect and respond is also harder to reduce when security tools are not integrated.

Enterprises are looking to consolidate their vendor spread, which makes it easier to manage the cybersecurity stack, reduces costs and offers better results in the long term. In 2024, organisations will increase their focus on reducing complexities and turn to consolidated cybersecurity stacks.

Cloud Security High On Agenda

With a large proportion of infrastructure on the cloud, businesses are adjusting their cybersecurity strategy to adopt cloud security. In 2024, organisations with multi or hybrid cloud projects will move to establishing a more unified approach to cybersecurity when dealing with more than one cloud provider. Rationalising cloud security tools across the entire development lifecycle will also be in focus as this provides higher visibility, correlation and security monitoring.