Cyber Defense eMagazine February Edition for 2023

With difficult decisions ahead, here are four cybersecurity trends that organizations should prepare for in
2023:
1. Rising costs may trigger an influx of cyber hustlers and money mules, fueling the
cybercrime economy and putting users at risk.
With its shift to platform business models, the cybercrime gig economy has made cybercrime easier,
cheaper, and more scalable. Cybercrime tools and mentoring services are affordable and plentiful,
enticing cyber hustlers – opportunists with low levels of technical skill – to access what they need to turn
a profit. As we face another global downturn, easy access to cybercrime tools and know-how could
increase the number of scam SMS messages and emails we see in our inboxes. Drawn by the promise
of quick money, we may also see more people recruited into money-muling schemes, inadvertently
fueling the cybercrime economy by enabling cybercriminals to launder ransom payments and fraudulent
transactions.
As an industry, we know that email is the most common attack vector, particularly for opportunists looking
to make money fast like cyber hustlers, who favor simpler techniques like scams and phishing. The
interconnectedness of the cybercrime ecosystem means threat actors can easily monetize these types
of attacks. And if they strike gold and compromise a corporate device, they can sell that access to bigger
players, like ransomware gangs. This all feeds into the cybercrime engine, giving organized groups even
more reach.
As attacks against users increase, having security built into devices from the hardware up will be essential
to prevent, detect and recover from attacks. Fostering a healthy security culture is vital for building
resilience – but only when combined with technology that reduces an organization’s attack surface. By
isolating risky activities like malicious emails, entire classes of threats can be eliminated without relying
on detection. Threat containment technologies ensure that if a user opens a malicious link or attachment,
the malware can’t infect anything. This way organizations can reduce their attack surface and protect
employees without hindering their workflows.
2. Established hackers to invest in advanced attacks below the operating system.
In 2023, organizations should take control of firmware security. Once, firmware attacks were only used
by highly advanced threat groups and nation states. But over the last year, we’ve seen early signs of
increased interest and development of attacks below the operating system in the cybercrime underground
– from tools to hack BIOS passwords, to rootkits and trojans targeting a device’s firmware. We now see
firmware rootkits advertised on cybercrime marketplaces for a few thousand dollars.
Advanced threat actors are always aiming to keep their attack capabilities ahead of the curve.
Unfortunately, organizations often overlook firmware security, creating a large attack surface for
adversaries to exploit. Access to the firmware level enables attackers to gain persistent control and hide
below the operating system, making them very hard to detect – let alone remove and remediate.
Cyber Defense eMagazine – February 2023 Edition 58
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