Top 7 Cyber Security Trends in 2024

As new vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and malware variants emerge, some threats come to the fore, while others go out of fashion for a while. In 2024, cyber threat actors are largely resorting to sophisticated attacks that have historically shown a good success rate and return on investment (ROI).

The hottest cybersecurity threats of 2024 include:

• Ransomware: Ransomware has been a major security problem for several years. Attackers are increasingly moving away from data encryption and stealing data and extorting a ransom to avoid disclosing it publicly.
• Supply chain: Major attacks like the SolarWinds hack have shown the potential effectiveness and scale of a supply chain attack. Supply chain threats include exploiting trust relationships between organizations and injecting vulnerabilities or malicious code into open-source libraries and dependencies commonly used in enterprise applications.
• Multi-vector attacks: Multi-vector attacks combine multiple techniques and attack vectors into a single cyberattack campaign. Cyber threat actors use these tactics because they make it more difficult to detect and contain attacks and increase the likelihood of success.

Top Cybersecurity Trends in 2024

The top cybersecurity trends for businesses are often inspired by a mix of responses to leading cyber threats, emerging technologies, and long-term security goals. These are some of the key security trends and technologies that will define the cybersecurity space in 2024.

#1. Hybrid Data Center

The rise of cloud computing has provided organizations with much greater infrastructure scalability than was previously possible. Cloud environments allow organizations to scale up or down their infrastructure as needed.

While some organizations have moved their data center entirely to the cloud, others have used cloud computing as a way to expand their on-premises data center. A hybrid data center uses orchestration so that data and applications can be moved between on-premises and cloud infrastructure across the network as needed.

Hybrid data centers allow organizations to better adapt their environments to their infrastructure and security requirements. For example, more sensitive data and applications can be hosted on-premises, while resources that require greater scalability can be stored in the cloud. By using orchestration and connected infrastructure, these resources can be seamlessly moved between the two when needed.

#2. Use of AI in cyberattacks

Generative AI has experienced a rapid upswing in 2024. While the technology first entered the public consciousness at the end of 2022 with the advent of ChatGPT, several alternatives have emerged since then.

The rise of AI has significant implications for cybersecurity from both an offensive and defensive perspective. On the offensive side, ChatGPT and similar tools have already been used by cyber threat actors to streamline and improve cyberattacks, with attacks increasing across the board year-over-year.

Generative AI has a wide range of applications for offensive cybersecurity. ChatGPT and similar tools, for example, can easily write highly convincing emails for phishing attacks. It is also possible for an attacker to bypass the built-in protections of these technologies to trick them into writing malware or teaching budding cybercriminals how to carry out new attacks.

While AI also has numerous potential use cases in defense, its increasing maturity is leading to an arms race between attackers and defenders. Whichever side uses it most effectively is likely to have a significant advantage in the future.

#3. Hybrid Mesh Firewall

Enterprise networks are becoming increasingly distributed and heterogeneous. With a combination of on-premises, cloud-based, and remote locations, it can be difficult to deploy and manage firewall solutions that provide consistent security protection and enforcement across an organization's network environment. However, providing this consistent security is also critical to protecting the organization from advanced attacks.

To solve this challenge, organizations are increasingly turning to hybrid mesh firewalls, which combine different types of firewalls into an integrated, centrally managed security architecture. This enables organizations to deploy the firewall solution that makes sense for a given environment while maintaining centralized visibility, management, and policy enforcement across their infrastructure.

#4. CNAPP

The advent of cloud environments has had a dramatic impact on application development and security. Cloud environments enable rapid DevOps development cycles and can save developers the need to maintain and secure the environments in which their applications run. In addition, the growth of the cloud has encouraged the use of containerization to ensure that applications can freely switch between on-premises and different cloud environments.

These changes in application development are also accompanied by significant implications for application security (AppSec). Cloud applications often function differently than their on-prem counterparts and are operated in their own deployment environment. Therefore, they need AppSec solutions that are tailored to their unique needs.

Gartner has defined the cloud-native application Protection Platform (CNAPP) to describe security solutions that integrate the various capabilities required for Cloud AppSec into a single solution. By integrating multiple capabilities into a single solution and dashboard, CNAPP helps combat the proliferation of security in the cloud, enabling security teams to more effectively monitor, manage, and secure their cloud-based applications.

#5. Threat Management

The growing volume, complexity, and speed of cyberattacks mean that a reactive approach to cybersecurity is not effective. To effectively manage their cybersecurity risk and protect against growing cyber threats, organizations must proactively take steps to assess and manage their risk exposure.

Threat Exposure Management (TEM) is a risk-centric approach to strategic security planning. Security teams identify potential threats to the organization and assess the risk each poses to the organization. Based on this information, the organization can develop, prioritize, and implement mitigation strategies for various risks.

As the cyber threat landscape and various regulations require a more risk-oriented approach to security, organizations are increasingly turning to TEM. By regularly conducting this threat detection and assessment process, the organization can stay on top of evolving threats and ensure that it is prepared to deal with new attack vectors.

#6. Comprehensive protection

Enterprise IT environments have evolved rapidly and become more diverse in recent years. The rise of the cloud has had a significant impact on enterprise IT environments and application development. Hybrid and remote work expanded the role of mobile devices in the workforce. The Internet of Things (IoT devices) have become more sophisticated and ubiquitous, a trend that the maturation and expansion of the 5G mobile network is likely to promote.

As a result of all this expansion, organizations are exposed to a much wider range of threats and potential attack vectors than ever before. Cyber threat actors can attack vulnerabilities in traditional endpoints, mobile devices, IoT systems, and remote work infrastructure. As more and more systems need to be monitored and secured, security teams are more likely to miss something that will give attackers access to their systems.

The end result of all this technological growth and innovation is a massive expansion of the cyber attack surface of organizations. Therefore, organizations need to identify a wider range of potential attack vectors and ensure they have solutions in place to address all of these risks.

#7. Security Consolidation

The expansion of enterprise attack surfaces and the increasing maturity of the cyber threat landscape have led to an explosion in the number of security tools deployed by organizations. Faced with a wide range of potential threats, organizations need to close security gaps, and in the past, they have often opted to deploy point security products that target a specific attack vector or increase security on a specific platform.

However, the rest of this focus on point security solutions is a complex and unusable security architecture. Each tool generates alerts and notifications, which increases alert fatigue and makes it more difficult for security personnel to detect and remediate real threats. In addition, the need to run many different security solutions increases the need for training, necessitates constant context switching between different dashboards, and increases the risk of security vulnerabilities and inconsistent security policy enforcement.

Because of these challenges, many organizations are pulling back and focusing on improving security through security consolidation. Instead of separate point solutions, they are looking for integrated platforms that provide the security features they need in a single solution. These platforms provide enhanced visibility and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of threat detection and response by reducing manual processes and the cognitive burden on security personnel.

Strengthen your cybersecurity with Check Point

The evolution of cyber threats and the digital attack surface of enterprises are increasing the pressure on organizations to streamline and improve their security architectures. New attack vectors require additional security features, but the proliferation of point security solutions makes it difficult for security teams to keep up. To learn more about the cyber threats facing organizations today, read Check Point's Cybersecurity Report.

Check Point solutions provide organizations with the ability to deploy an integrated cybersecurity platform that ensures efficient, consistent security across an organization's IT architecture. To learn more about building a consolidated security architecture with Check Point, read this white paper on improving security efficiency while improving risk management.