Top Attacks Your Organization Should Watch Out for in 2023

With 2023 right around the corner and Cyber Security Awareness month in full swing, there’s no better time than now than to ensure you’re prepared for what the threat landscape may hold in the next year.

Here are the top attacks your organization should prepare for in 2023:

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Attacks

As organizations have implemented MFA technologies in their environments, hackers are utilizing these technologies in their attempts to gain access to internal systems and data. A recent case of this in the news was in the Uber compromise, where the hacker was able to get in due to an abuse of their implemented MFA solution.

In these “MFA-fatigue” attacks, typically attackers will bombard users with repeated MFA approval notifications with the goal of eventually wearing them down and having the employee approve the notification out of frustration. As these attacks require stolen, valid credentials to launch, once the notification is approved, the hacker will have access.

This attack method emphasizes the need for adequate user training and other protections in place to supplement multi-factor authentication, such as a Zero-Trust Network Architecture to limit organizational access and 24×7 security monitoring to evaluate user behavior analytics and respond to potential attacks.

Hardware and Software Vulnerabilities

Cybersecurity best practice involves continuous patching of your systems and hardware to ensure your environment is receiving the latest security updates and for good reason.

Attackers continue to search for vulnerabilities in commonly used technologies and exploit where they can. Between the cybersecurity community and the technology organizations themselves, updates and workarounds to patch the known vulnerabilities can be released quickly once the vulnerability has been discovered, but it then falls on organizations to be aware of the changes and implement those updates in a timely manner.

Shadow APIs

As organizations adopt more and more technologies into their environment, the need arises to integrate those technologies and the data within them, which frequently elicits the use of APIs.

Shadow APIs are APIs that are utilized within your organization but are not documented or tracked in your environment and do not follow a defined process that include security and peer review. These can occur when development teams incorporate APIs without involving central IT or when APIs are not properly deprecated. These APIs can leave organizations open to attackers that can exploit vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in the code.

Attacks through Mobile Devices

According to Verizon’s 2022 Mobile Security Index, 45% of the organizations surveyed experienced mobile-related compromise, almost twice as many than in their 2021 survey.

Mobile endpoints extend your attack surface in your environment and in turn, your potential for security gaps. Yet too often mobile device security isn’t fully integrated within a business and is overlooked as a part of an organization’s cybersecurity program.

Mobile device specific attacks can range anywhere from phishing text messages to juice jacking in airports where a public USB charging station is infected with malware. There may

The best protection against attacks on mobile devices is to utilize a mobile device management solution to protect your organization against attacks made on your end-users’ devices.

Supply-Chain Attacks

Supply-chain attacks continue to threaten organizations across all industries. In a supply chain attack, hackers will target vulnerabilities of third-party vendors who offer services or software and utilize their access to infiltrate their customers.

Ensuring your organization has best-practice cybersecurity measures in place an a solid approach to vendor risk management can help defend these types of attacks.

Ransomware

Last but not least on our top attacks list is ransomware. Ransomware continues to be a good revenue stream for threat actors, as the average cost of a ransomware attack is currently $4.54 million according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report.  

Unfortunately, ransomware isn’t going anywhere in 2023 and organizations need to be actively putting measures in place to prevent ransomware attacks.

Protecting Against These Attacks

As your organization plans for 2023 initiatives, cybersecurity needs to be at the forefront of your priority list to protect against these types of attacks.

The best way to protect your organization is to ensure that you have a comprehensive cybersecurity program in place that includes multiple layers of protection and full visibility into your environment’s network, endpoint, and cloud activity.