In 2022, the scale of cyberthreats grew manifolds, spilling into the mainstream. The upcoming year will see a growing impetus for cybersecurity readiness, with the higher management within organizations playing a key role in the adoption of better, more holistic cybersecurity measures.

As part of the threat forecast, Forescout turned to different fields on the security frontline and highlighted the vulnerabilities they are supposed to witness in 2023.

Some of the key trends expected to evolve this year are :

More organizations will focus on connected device visibility: In today’s rapidly digitizing world, most organizations have readily adopted IoT devices, albeit without sufficient security governance. As the number of connected devices continues to grow, so does the attack surface for the ecosystems and networks they are connected to. This puts networks at an increased risk of security breaches and data leaks.

Assessing the situation and acknowledging the need for reinforced cybersecurity, organizations will focus greatly on the cyber practices pertaining to connected devices. The coming year will see leading organizations investing heavily in updating or establishing more robust cybersecurity policies and procedures, monitoring and patching devices, correlating IoT and IT networks, and updating the inventories of their IoT-enabled devices.

OT environments will attract evolved threats: Operational Technology (OT) has been a favorite target for cyber attackers over the years, and the year 2023 will see an upscaling in the level of threats that OT environments receive. An acute shortage of skilled workforce in the space, combined with the overlapping OT and IT environments, makes the containment of cyber incidents quite difficult.

To thwart the advances of cyber criminals, organizations can put in a strong defense system that covers threat identification, detection and prevention. Increasing the visibility of such devices, along with implementing security tools for the OT environment after segmenting the network, and establishing security operations centers are a few steps that can be of help.

Supply chain security risks will continue to grow: The hyperconnected world that we live in relies heavily upon its supply chains for both products and services. The ripple effect that the disruption of one supply chain can have over others was widely witnessed during the pandemic, which also highlighted how critical this interdependence is for globally connected businesses.

The importance of supply chains also makes them a preferred target for cybercriminals, and the coming year will continue to see an uptick in the number of attacks attempted to disrupt global supply chains. The complexity, frequency and intensity of these attacks will also continue to evolve, driving organizations to adopt a holistic approach and make a shift towards real-time monitoring of third-party risks and vulnerabilities with respect to software and firmware components.

Growing impetus for cybersecurity readiness: The last few years have seen the cybersecurity landscape register a rapid transformation in terms of the sophistication of threats and that of the means to thwart them. The year 2023 will see a growing impetus for cybersecurity readiness, with the higher management within organizations playing a key role in the adoption of better, more holistic cybersecurity measures.

Due to continued negligence, cybersecurity often takes a backseat in many organizations. However, as businesses continue to prioritize transparency to create stronger consumer relationships, adopting a better stance with respect to cybersecurity will become imperative for organizations in order to continue attracting customers towards their products or services.

Privacy and data security will be the foundation to consumer trust: The digital age of today calls for most operations to turn digital, including consumer engagements. However, the growing instances of customer data leakage has shaken up the trust that customers used to hold for various organizations they were associated with. Today, customers hold high expectations for the organizations to have a robust security setup that can ensure security and privacy of their valuable data.

The coming year will see a further growth in this trend, as more and more customers continue to grow wary of how and where their data will be used. This will in turn create an urgency for organizations to foster stronger relationships with their customers based on mutual trust that is propelled by greater user control over data and increased transparency with respect to policies.