Cybersecurity and its breach are a major headache for many Californian small and medium business owners. Daily, their businesses experience different types of cyberattacks. So, what can we expect to see in the coming year? Which cybersecurity trends will rule 2024 and what network solutions are available to protect your business then? In this post, you will discover four main cybersecurity predictions that will rule 2024. Moreover, you will also learn what you should do to protect your business, and how our proven cybersecurity remediation solutions can do for it.
But before digging deeper into these trends, let’s look at some of the stats that reveal the gravity of the challenge.
- Human error accounts for 95% of all cybersecurity breaches because crooks use the weakest points to infiltrate systems
- We have an acute shortage of qualified cybersecurity experts in the US. According to National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), we have only 715,000 trained cybersecurity experts and 314,000 vacancies
- 60% of businesses suffer cyberattacks such as DDoS attacks, phishing, and social engineering onslaughts
- 43% of cyberattacks target small business up from 15% two years ago
- Only 10% of cybercrimes are reported in the US annually
- Ransomware attacks happen every 14 seconds in the US
- The University of Maryland estimates that cybercrime happens every 39 seconds on average. This figure affects one-third of Americans annually
Cybersecurity Trend #1: More and Tighter Legislation
Cybercrime is just that, crime. Just like any other crime, it calls for legal intervention to stem it. This coming year, tighter legislation will be a leading cybersecurity trend locally and at the federal level. Remember, even government systems at the federal and state level are still vulnerable to these attacks. Therefore, we expect to see more rigorous legislative efforts at these levels. However, the federal government is yet to draft its own national legislations even though different states such as Washington and California have drafted their own laws. For example, California has its own legislation called The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that takes effect on January 1, 2020. This legislation governs how companies store and secure data. The CCPA has the following requirements:
- Businesses should inform individuals about how they use their information
- Consumers can demand crucial information about their personal data in the hands of corporations
- Companies should provide individuals with a way of disallowing the sharing of their details
- Companies must delete customer data if they so request
- Businesses should inform customers about the type of data they possess
- Enterprises must provide customers with particular data they gathered in the past year
What You Should Do
So, how should you respond to this cybersecurity trend to avoid landing into trouble with the law? Here are practical solutions you can implement to remain legally correct and safe.
- Prepare yourself for compliance as CCPA takes effect and the federal legislation that can come in any time
- Familiarize yourself with the CCPA provisions for easier compliance
- Audit and analyze your small/medium business to see if it complies with the letter and spirit of CCPA
- Take necessary measures to comply in consultation with your legal team and cybersecurity experts
What We Can Do for You
Here is how our solutions can assist you to respond to this cybersecurity trend:
- The implementation of best practices for group policies and password management
- External vulnerability assessment we perform quarterly for our compliance clients
- Helping you to comply with federal and/or industry standards and regulations such as HIPAA, SOX, GLBA, PCI, etc
- Undertaking of staff training and education so it can work within legal confines
- Enhance your organization’s security culture
- Help with the implementation of rules change
Cybersecurity Trend #2: Increased AI Integration
Increased use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in advancing cybersecurity threats and cybersecurity remediation is another trend that will rule 2024. Although AI was designed for good use, hackers hijacked it for their malicious ends. For example, they use it to create and deploy sophisticated ransomware and social engineering. Consequently, they leave businesses counting monetary and non-monetary losses. For instance, these viruses can:
- Turn on audio and video and start recording
- Alter passwords
- Bypass security measures
- Spread through entire computer networks
However, companies can exploit AI’s two-edged nature to counter the AI-enabled cyberattacks. The reason is that AI helps businesses to detect and respond to cyberattacks faster than humans do. Remember, early detection is necessary for timely countering. These systems can detect and respond in milliseconds to attacks human beings could take hours, days, and even months to notice. For example, even big companies such as Facebook and Capital One have taken six months to detect major security breaches. Unfortunately, these companies have people’s sensitive data such as credit card details, social security numbers, and passwords.
What You Should Do
So, you need to take the following measures to protect your small/medium business against AI-enabled cyber onslaughts:
- Establish AI cybersecurity governance for transparent, ethical, and long-term improvement in your business
- Identify relevant and the latest data sources of AI-powered cybersecurity remediation
- Create data platforms to implement effective AI-powered security systems
- Improve threat intelligence by collaborating with local external parties and solution providers
- Make your cybersecurity staff AI-ready
- Deploy SOAR technologies to enhance security management. This way, you will be better placed to collect security data safely from different sources
What We Can Do for You
Despite the increasing abuse of AI in creating and deploying cyberattacks, you don’t need to panic because you are not alone. We are here to:
- Help you to implement advanced threat detection and protection
- Assist you to create managed next-generation firewalls
- Help you to enjoy managed compliance
- Offer your enterprise managed vulnerability scanning
- Protect your business, information, and brand image against hackers, AI-enabled viruses, and malware
- Offer you 24/7 cyber threat detection and monitoring of vital systems by our cybersecurity experts
- Offer you 24/7 Intrusion Detection and Threat Detection monitoring
- Delivering security expertise and around the clock response, and remediation
- Enable you to deploy top-notch security technologies
Cybersecurity Trend #3: Cyberattacks Will Go Mobile
The mobile telephony revolution has provided hackers with a new platform to perpetrate their malicious agenda. The battle is rapidly shifting to mobile devices because more than 65 percent of all online activities happen on mobile gadgets. This coming year, we expect cybercrime to get more mobile than ever. Here are stats to show you how serious this battle front will be in 2024, hence, inspire you to take early and effective preventive measures:
- RSA, EMS’s security division, reveals that mobile users are at least 3 times more vulnerable to phishing attacks than desktop users
- Also, RSA shows that 70% of fraudulent transactions in 2019 happened on mobile devices
- Mobile users are much less aware of the available mobile cybersecurity remediation solutions
- Most mobile users easily download apps before researching their developers or understanding some of their suspect permissions they ask for
- AVG Technologies discloses that 89% of mobile users don’t know that smartphone apps can steal confidential payment information such as credit card details secretly
- Sadly, 29% of mobile users keep their credit and debit card details on their gadgets
- Lastly, RSA research in 2019 reveals that mobile apps fraud has risen by 680 percent since 2015
Can you see these loopholes in mobile devices? Unfortunately, many emerging businesses in LA, California depend on portable gadgets. Therefore, it’s high time LA businesses took serious their mobile transaction security since they are more vulnerable on this front than on desktops.
What You Should Do
So, what should your small business do to secure its mobile transaction front? Here are practical measures to safeguard your emerging enterprise against mobile device hackers in 2024.
- Develop a security-conscious culture in your business
- Empower your employees against mobile gadget attacks to drive innovation against cyberattacks
- Set strong passwords on all business mobile appliances
- Encourage your staff to download software and files from trusted sources only
- Back up and secure your mobile data
- Delete all data on old company smartphones before donating, reselling, or recycling them
- Download and install mobile security apps that scan all apps you download for malware and spyware
- Report all lost or stolen smartphones
- Never install pirated applications
What We Can Do for You
Our cybersecurity remediation solutions can do this for your business:
- Offer advanced threat detection and protection for all your mobile company devices
- Protect your small business and data against mobile device hackers, viruses, and malware
- Deploy the latest mobile and desktop security technologies
- Offer ongoing device security and maintenance updates
- Provide managed Extended Endpoint Detection and Response capabilities
Cybersecurity Trend # 4: Phishing Will Continue and Take More Subtle Forms
Lastly, this cybersecurity trend will rule 2024. The phishing warfare will increase this coming year and take more subtle forms. It’s important to note that hackers break into businesses’ email systems to lie in wait and gather sensitive details about them. Afterwards, they use the stolen details to take advantage of the relationships and trust businesses have built with people they email regularly. Moreover, these attacks affect all sectors. Here is an example of a complex phishing attack targeting real estate firms and mortgage transfer. They conduct their fraud this way:
Hackers deceive a property buyer to transfer closing deal fees to a fraudster using an email that seems to arrive from their trusted mortgage agent. Meanwhile, they wait patiently and hack into a mortgage lender or title agent’s computer network to steal information regarding any pending mortgage deal and settlement date. Suddenly, they strike unsuspecting victims mostly one day before the real agent emails to inform them where they should send their mortgage funds. Afterwards, they rush ahead and redirect the real email from the mortgage agent so it doesn’t land in the victim’s inbox. Meanwhile, the client directs the cash to the fraudster only to realize later they have lost their money and property. Unfortunately, most of them never recover their hard-earned cash.
What You Should Do
As 2024 arrives and phishing takes new twists, prepare to defend yourself against this trend in the following ways:
- Enforce good and secure email passwords policy across your business
- Train your employees on the best email protection practices and how they can detect complex phishing attacks
- Update all your anti-virus protection regularly
- Implement a centralized network protection system
- Use specialized anti-phishing solutions to identify false emails carrying malicious and harmful links that can expose your business to hackers
- Limit and control access to user accounts in your email system to allow only for users to access the system when it’s necessary and leave immediately after performing their official duties
What We Can Do for You
You don’t need to worry about the complex twists phishing is taking in this coming year. Our solutions are here to assist you in the following ways:
- Offering advanced phishing threat detection and protection
- Providing the latest managed firewalls
- Conducting managed phishing vulnerability scanning
- Eliminating the hassles of internal network security management
- Phishing incident management and monitoring
- Implementing best practices for group policies and password management
- Providing device control to restrict where users should store data
- Offering 24/7 security logging
Closing Remarks
The New Year is around the corner. However, cybersecurity and its breaches remain a major headache for small to medium Californian businesses. Moreover, different cybersecurity trends will dominate 2024 with far-reaching implications. For example, more and strict legislations will take effect with California set to implement its CCPA regulations next January. Moreover, phishing will continue taking more subtle forms. Also, AI will remain a two-edge sword hackers will use to attack businesses while network security solutions providers will optimize to counter hackers. Also, the cybersecurity war will go more mobile as hackers target mobile devices due to their vulnerability.
However, don’t worry about these trends because we will be right there with and for you. So, you can trust our cybersecurity remediation solutions to protect your business and valuable data. For example, we can assist you to comply with cybersecurity regulations, train your staff in various online security matters, and provide you with managed firewalls. Lastly, we can enhance your enterprise’s security culture and help with the implementation of rules change. So, contact for all these solutions and many others to future-proof your small business in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties today.
Purple Shield Security is a Los Angeles based leading cyber security consulting company dedicated to helping organizations protect their most valuable assets. Purple Shield Security offers a comprehensive range of cyber security services, including cyber security consulting, cyber security incident and breach response, managed cyber security, vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and compliance assessments.