As 2024 comes to a close and we begin making preparations for the new year, it is critical that organizations sit down and discuss their plans to stay one step ahead of the cybersecurity landscape. Based on the events observed this year, we can expect to see new and advanced methods of exploitation, a need for more personalized cybersecurity training, and a new spin on ransomware that targets the family and friends of influential figures to establish credibility.

Cybersecurity Prediction #1: Attackers Get More Creative with Exploitation of Trusted Infrastructure

The continued application of AI in cybercrime has caused attackers to become more creative in their methods. Part of this evolution involves a growing trend of exploiting trusted infrastructure and trusted services to distribute attacks and host malicious payloads. 

Whether it’s malware, destination pages, or audio voices and images, all the resources attackers are building rely on different bots and interaction services. We have seen attackers find clever places to insert their attacks between a vendor’s technical services and the user’s destination, such as on trusted file-sharing sites or collaboration platforms.

Cybersecurity Prediction #2: Cybersecurity Training Takes a Far More Personalized Turn

On the user training side, it is likely that we will see more user training based on a user’s actual online habits, personal messaging threads, and email archives. Such customized training will raise awareness about how targeted these attacks can become based on attackers doing detailed research into user behaviors.

Cybersecurity Prediction #3: Next-Gen Ransomware: The Friends & Family Plan

The threats from ransomware remain significant, especially for organizations exposed by the weak security protections. It can be a school system, a small charity, or a huge utility provider, but the criteria for attackers remain the same: Does the target have enough money, and can we get it out of them?

Looking ahead, we should expect more attacks to target vulnerable relatives and close friends of influential people, such as bank CEOs and celebrities. If the hackers cannot penetrate security defenses at the bank, they may be able to socially engineer a spouse or an executive assistant into giving away credentials or log-ins from home.

In many cases, relatives share the same bank accounts, or friends’ lists which can be impersonated on social media. There’s a lot of data out there, and with the rise of deep-fake videos and altered audio files, this problem can only get worse. That’s why it is important for powerful people and high-value employees who may be targets for malware or ransomware to deploy executive cybersecurity protections. Such services can help protect the families of CXOs, executive officers, and other high-value targets by blocking advanced phishing, social engineering, ransomware, fraud, and reputation scams across all their business and personal communication apps.

Cybersecurity Prediction #4: Staying Resilient in 2025 and Beyond

Online dangers continue to increase for business users, especially with the growing adoption of AI in software systems. In this risky climate, organizations need to become more proactive about protecting their critical infrastructure and training their employees to be on the watch for any potential attacks. That includes looking out for clear markers of phishing attacks, such as unusual email addresses from unknown senders, or messages that convey a strong sense of urgency to make a payment or transfer funds. 

Ransomware attacks present another dangerous security dilemma that will require a strong combination of artificial intelligence and human intelligence to recognize all the ways that attackers may attempt to infiltrate enterprise networks. Once attackers can succeed in breaching a network, they can lock down critical software systems in exchange for a ransom payment. Staying resilient in 2025 and beyond will depend on security teams staying vigilant and taking continuous steps to protect their company assets.

Cyber Technology Insights: iStorage’s datAshur PRO+C & PRO+A Get FIPS 140-3 Level 3

To participate in our interviews, please write to our CyberTech Media Room at news@intentamplify.com