By Vishal Salvi

Following are the challenges in Cybersecurity in 2023:

The threat of ransomware and geo-targeted phishing will continue to persist, and an increasing attack surface and growing complexity of networks will spawn a new generation of cyber threats.

Stolen credentials will be responsible for a vast majority of data breaches because enterprises will fail to pay adequate focus on bolstering security.

The threat to operational technology (OT) such as hardware and software that monitors or controls equipment, has also been growing at a worrying rate and will continue to grow. Weaponized OT environments could be life-threatening in industries such as healthcare or manufacturing.

While enterprises in healthcare, financial services, government, education, and energy will be on the list of hackers, in the coming year, individuals will be the easiest target for cyber-attacks.

Finding skilled cybersecurity professionals will continue to be a challenge. There is a significant shortage of 3.4 million workers as per the 2022 (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study. As a result, organisations will take a reactive approach to cybersecurity. Non-traditional hiring, collaboration between industry and academia, and extensive upskilling will become important tools to bridge the cybersecurity talent gap.

Increase in cloud adoption will expose enterprises to an increased number of data breaches, DDoS attacks, and the risk of data loss will lead to the optimization of cloud security.

The hybrid work model and remote working will pose several security challenges and expand the threat spectrum in the modern workplace. As “borderless” enterprises will become common, they will expose remote workers to diverse cyber threats and security risks.

We will see organizations, governments and regulatory bodies investing more on cybersecurity in the following ways:

Greater investment in AI/ML to boost cybersecurity

Artificial Intelligence will play a key role in helping organizations to lower the risk of data breaches and improve their overall cybersecurity posture. AI will help identify patterns and trends based on historical data, and machine learning will help make intelligent predictions regarding future attacks.

Increased emphasis on regulatory compliance

Government regulations are deepening their focus on data privacy. Gartner expects that by 2023, 65% of the world’s population will have its personal data covered under modern privacy regulations. Modern privacy laws modelled on General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will emerge as the global standard for privacy protocols.

Focus on technology and vendor consolidation

As the cybersecurity landscape matures, it is likely to result in significant technology and vendor consolidation. The focus will be on reducing the complexity and effort required to manage the security infrastructure. Enterprises are also likely to move to a centralized security management system rather than dealing with multiple vendors and products. The emphasis will remain on the efficiency and effectiveness of cybersecurity infrastructure.

The author is the Chief Information Security Officer & Head of Cyber Security Practice at Infosys.