Data Theft to dominate in 2023

The cyber game is now an entire underground economy wrapped around cyberattacks. Evolving technologies have not only helped enterprises but also armed hackers with sophisticated tools to steal data and harm individual businesses. Data theft has become a holy grail for scammers as they move from only hacking emails to stealing more sensitive information including bank accounts, social security numbers, identification documents, and so on as we gear to step into the year 2023.

Increasing IoT usage is going to make security a big headache, with 43 billion devices connected to the internet in 2023, attackers have no shortage of targets. Although IoT devices can provide productive capabilities in commercial environments, risks abound. Manufacturers prioritize convenience and consumer-like appeal over security fundamentals. Unsurprisingly, devices are often deployed with weak or default credentials.

There are certain segments that are going to get deeply affected are:

1. Targeting E-commerce segment: With e-commerce reaching all existing records of popularity, the influx of both companies and customers to maximize their profits is increasing day by day. Today, there are thousands of online marketplaces operating all across the globe with each of them having hordes of customer data. This data is primarily used for making better business decisions but such a vast amount of information makes it prone to cyberattacks. There has been an exponential rise of attacks on online marketplaces and the year 2023 will likely witness more such attacks in the e-commerce space.

2. Third-Party Exposure: Gartner research reveals that cybercriminals are increasingly using third-party services to target important firms and organizations. As third-party services are an integral part of the business ecosystem, breachers are using these stakeholders for their nefarious attempts. The cybersecurity attacks originating from suppliers, software developers, and logistics partners have consistently been on the rise as attackers impersonate these partners and steal sensitive information from unsuspecting users. These attacks are also damaging trust between stakeholders.

3. Supply chain vulnerabilities: The importance of an efficient supply chain in ensuring business profitability cannot be ignored today. Owing to this significance, experts predict that the global supply chain will be high on the radar of hackers in 2023. The disruptions are likely to impact not only the corporate sector but will also engulf public sector units in trade, commerce, national securities, etc. Further, the involvement of state actors in executing these attacks can’t be ruled out either in the coming years.

4. Semiconductor shortage: This might sound unrelated at the first glance but dig deep and one can easily correlate data theft attempts with shortages of semiconductors. The global shortage of semiconductors is pushing the prices which means servers, hardware, and peripherals will cost more in future. This might also force companies to cut spending on cybersecurity measures, thereby making them an easy target for breachers to infiltrate and lock them out from their operating systems.

All stakeholders across business ecosystems are unanimous on the pressing need to preserve the data in the most safe and secure way. 

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA