Predictions for 2023: What’s Next in Cyber Security?

By Danny Allan, CTO, Veeam and Dave Russell, VP of Enterprise Strategy, Veeam

Citizen-led denial of service attacks will falter in favor of social media-led boycotting

Despite analysts’ belief that citizen-led denial of service (cDOC) attacks will increase in 2023, I expect that technology designed to prevent cDOC attacks will catch up with this form of protest rather quickly. Instead, look for social-led boycotting to grow in both scope and complexity in 2023, as activists find new ways to use social media platforms to protest individual companies. It is much more difficult to weaponize from a cyber perspective, and as cDOC prevention methods become more mature, I believe activists will respond by taking to social media.

Though job cuts will slow in 2023, unstable industries will be forced to continue laying off employees

One of 2022’s defining storylines was the wave of mass layoffs that haunted tech companies who grew too quickly during the pandemic. Though I believe cuts will slow down in 2023, we’ll continue to see layoffs from companies that over-hired and those in shaky markets, such as blockchain and Web3.

However, for tech companies experiencing solid financial performance, expect to see an increased focus on both cybersecurity and data protection and backup. I expect IT spend will continue to grow in 2023, and companies that have a solid foundation must take advantage by investing in their cyber infrastructures and security teams.

Expect the financial currency disparity to rock the world in 2023

Global uncertainty, including supply chain disruption and international conflict, has significantly impacted the way businesses across the globe are operating. This uncertainty will cause upheavals in a number of industries that will likely increase the financial currency disparity around the world, in part due to companies having to seek alternative sources of supply. Coupled with the continued growth of ransomware attacks, expect to see this disparity cause an increased reliance on cybersecurity to protect against nation-state bad actors.

57% of companies to switch backup providers in 2023, dedicate more investment to infrastructure, and stick to data centers

In 2023, organizations will experience above average growth in their tech investments, via buying infrastructure and adding on new services. In a Veeam survey, 57% of respondents said they are very likely to shake things up with their current data backup providers and make a change, but they plan on keeping data centers around as another form of security. In the search for a new backup provider, organizations are looking for better reliability in security and in uploading workloads. At least one quarter of production workloads will be in virtualization, while 50-52% will be running in a cloud-based model. But just because the cloud continues to rise, doesn’t mean leadership is looking to get rid of data centers. In fact, many organizations are sticking to the 3-2-1 model – 3 copies of data, 2 different media, and 1 offsite copy.

Cyber response teams will incorporate AI for real-time attack and anomaly detection

Cybersecurity prevention and detection continue to grow more complex day after day as attacks such as ransomware continue to evolve. The amount of data loss reported alone this past year is becoming increasingly higher. At the same time, organizations that initially said they hadn’t been attacked by ransomware, have since been targeted. Now, with more companies adopting AI and machine learning for business operations, this is an opportunity to leverage those tools to defend against the increased attack landscape taking place today. In 2023, I predict that AI will be leveraged in situations such as detecting abnormal patterns better, faster, sooner, allowing these same organizations the opportunity to capture highly accurate responses and quickly resolve the cybersecurity problem at hand.

A cyberattack isn’t like a hurricane – leaders can’t wait until the rain and wind stops, they need to act in real time, as it’s happening. By integrating AI/ML to detect anomalies, they can work quickly to shut out bad actors and restore data and workflows with minimal disruption to the business.