As we approach the second quarter of 2023, there’s no shortage of cybersecurity trends that must be kept on the radar. If you’re responsible for security at your organization, it can be hard to wrap your arms around all of them, but here are five key threats that continue pose significant threats to all businesses, large or small.

Ransomware

The recent ransomware attack on the Indigo, one of Canada’s largest retailers, is a reminder that ransomware remains one the most significant threats to the digital infrastructure of every business. Attacks often come from remote devices as working from home has become normalized – policies and processes to secure endpoint devices haven’t kept up. In the meantime, state-sponsored ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure continue to rise.

Make sure you’ve bolstered your endpoint defence and replicated your data so that you’re not put in a position where your business can can’t serve customers because of a ransomware attack.

More attack surfaces

If you’ve got a remote workforce, you’ve got a wider attack surface. Couple that with internet of things (IoT) deployments, APIs and cloud computing instances, and threat actors have a larger selection of vulnerabilities they can exploit with ransomware, malware and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Multi-vector attacks on are also on the rise – as you’re fighting off one active threat, bad actors will simultaneously try to exploit another vulnerability.

Smarter bots

Bots are getting more sophisticated, which means they’re better at evading your security measures to spread malware and target your IT infrastructure with DDoS attacks. You need the tools and expertise in place to detect, prevent and mitigate malicious behavior.

Inside jobs are on the rise

Some security threats often come from within, even if they’re not always intentional. Whether it’s poor security hygiene or a disgruntled employee, threats from the inside have continued to rise in recent years. Hybrid work has exacerbated the problem, making authentication and authorization errors and human error more likely to compromise your IT infrastructure. Combine the use of insecure personal devices and poor access control and you have a recipe for a data breach that’s an inside job.

Zero Trust is becoming table stakes

These threats and trends mean that taking a Zero Trust approach to security is becoming non-negotiable. With so many endpoints and remote workers connecting to your network and cloud-based applications, you need granular control – employees should only have access to applications, networks and compute resources necessary to do their jobs.

You can begin implementing a Zero Trust approach to security by segmenting your network, continuously monitoring of all user behavior, and enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA). All of these will help to better thwart threats such as ransomware and reduce your attack surfaces.

Tackling a Zero Trust implementation alone can appear overwhelming, so consider turning to an experienced managed service provider who can help you evaluate your current security posture and how ready you are to face these key security trends in 2023 and beyond.