Summary Bullets:

• Cybercriminals will elevate their tactics in 2024, leveraging next-generation technology like generative AI to capture credentials through social engineering.

• Threat actors will increasingly apply AI as a mechanism to exploit vulnerabilities, but the technology will also become a potentially important element in protecting enterprises resources from attacks.

2023 was a complicated year for cybersecurity professionals. Progress in areas like machine learning, analytics, and automation yielded more accurate and faster threat intelligence, more efficient administration, and streamlined workflows. But at the same time, bad actors continued to innovate in their tactics. As a result, the number and cost of security breaches skyrocketed. Resource-constrained cybersecurity scrambled to safeguard enterprise resources without interfering with corporate productivity.

With the new year looming, organizations face all the challenges of 2023 with even more uncertainty around geopolitics and economic volatility. In 2024, as enterprises look to reduce spending, new and necessary cybersecurity investments may be challenged. GlobalData expects to see AI playing a bigger role in cybersecurity, both as a defensive tool and an offensive weapon. Organizations will continue to work toward implementing zero trust architectures while prioritizing efforts around integrating security into network services through wider secure access service edge (SASE) technology deployments.

GlobalData anticipates that in 2024, bad actors will continue to apply social engineering tactics for profit. Hackers have learned the universal vulnerability in all organizations, humans, is easily exploited. Advances in AI and analytics will give cybercriminal new tools to capitalize on human weakness.

A major point of exasperation in cybersecurity is the speed and effectiveness in which hackers adapt their tactics to capitalize on new technology. Unfortunately, this sometimes happens faster than the companies building out cybersecurity solutions. GlobalData expects that in 2024, there will be more progress in technology development around AI and integration by both cybercriminals and security providers. Enterprises will also work to incorporate more information to educate both their employees and customers about potential AI-related threats.

GlobalData expects that as employees – particularly those in IT and cybersecurity – apply AI in their professional roles, they will be more comfortable using it as an important tool in the defense against cyberattacks. It will be critical for vendors to offer proof points of effective AI outcomes in trials and production to reassure their clients that it can be a very effective defensive measure. But both vendors and their enterprise clients must stay vigilant about its power as a cyber weapon.

For more, please see: 2024 Enterprise Predictions: Secure by Design, December 21, 2023.