The “harmless” content could be harvested to create impersonation deepfakes that will fool your friends and even your bank!

Last year was a trying year for cybersecurity professionals, with attack surfaces expanding, threats proliferating, and manpower struggling to catch up.

In 2023, the landscape will continue to evolve, both in the types of threats that organizations need to watch out for, and their approach towards cybersecurity overall.

Based on Trend Micro data, we foresee three major cyber changes that readers can be alert to: 

David Ng, Country Manager, Singapore, Trend Micro

    1. A move from the point-solutions cybersecurity approach to a more holistic cybersecurity strategy
      This is underpinned by the existing need for greater visibility across the increasing attack surface spreading across various environments, networks, and operating systems.

      In 2022 surveys, many organizations in South-east Asia claimed to have just 62% visibility of their attack surfaces. Respondents claimed to have too few resources or capabilities to manage and understand cyber risks.

      Steering away from point solutions that are overconsuming resources could be the trend in 2023. There is a growing conversation on the benefits of a platform-based approach that integrates a cybersecurity vendor’s own offerings with third-party tools. This not only streamlines the user experience but provides defenders with enterprise-wide visibility and telemetry across their growing IT infrastructure.

    2. Social engineering attacks will become even more common
      This evergreen threat will embody emerging technologies such as deepfakes to improve success rates. The general public will need to be more careful of photos and videos that they share publicly online, as these are being increasingly manipulated to increase the effectiveness of existing attacks and monetization schemes.

      Business Email Compromise attacks are also being retrofitted with modern toolboxes that make impersonation of high-ranking executives even more realistic and interactive.

    3. Inconsistent application of cloud technology will give rise to increased security issues
      The widespread and rushed move to cloud computing is providing attackers with new opportunities to make their move by targeting irregularly patched vulnerabilities.

      In the coming year, we will see attackers take advantage of application and service vulnerabilities — for both internal and external services — as enterprises are still not able to patch vulnerabilities effectively.