Global Geopolitical instability is lead to a catastrophic cyberattack in the next 2 years

According to 93% of cybersecurity experts and 86% of business leaders heard by the Global Cybersecurity Outlook Report 2023 report, in collaboration with Accenture, global geopolitical instability is likely to lead to a catastrophic cyberattack in the next two years. This report, launched on January 18th in Davos, Switzerland, during the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2023, is alarming.

>>>Know the threats that circulate on the internet

The report points to a chaotic global situation regarding cyber protection. Also, according to the report, a critical skills gap threatens societies and key infrastructures, such as energy utilities, reporting a 25% gap in required skills. 34% of cybersecurity experts said they needed more skills in their team. 

The reports said that half of the companies surveyed are making them re-evaluate the countries where their organization operates. 

In the report, organizations said that they are improving cyber resilience, one of the critical priorities of the WEF’s Centre for Cybersecurity.

According to the report, geopolitical tensions may account for greater volatility in the character of cyber threats, with more significant variation in the types of malware widely available and changes in the type of assets or value creation processes targeted by cyber-attacks.

The report states that volatility has made it increasingly difficult to think strategically about the operational elements of an organization’s internal cybersecurity practices.

Jeremy Jurgens, Managing Director of WEF, said that the report shows the need for cooperation between all stakeholders from the public and private sectors to create a shared digital infrastructure more robust in security, resilience and trust. 

The report further informs that cyberattacks come in many forms and with different motivations. In cybersecurity terminology, these disparate groups are often lumped together using the term “threat actors.” According to the report, these threat actors went further last year and quickly adapted to exploit vulnerabilities generated by the political, technological and regulatory landscapes.

The report points out that attackers only need to exploit a meagre weakness in the organization. This is enough to generate the necessary opportunity for the attack. And it doesn’t have to be technological, like a crack in software or hardware. She can be human. And the loophole can be exploited without attacks, but only with the ingenuity of people who have done their homework well and done good research. The target will be social engineering attack. And through data that the target posts on the internet (social networks or even blogs), the attacker will be ready to take advantage and have his target in hand.

The report says, and it’s true, that attackers have a structural advantage: they need only find one exploitable weakness in an organization. This way, while attackers have only one field of attack, organizations have the entire structural network and people to cover and protect.

The report points out that professionalized cybercriminal groups continued to grow and create a greater volume of new attack types. “Volatility is not only risky; the time it takes to develop a response creates an opportunity cost for an organization’s cybersecurity experts. Sometimes cybersecurity teams feel forced to ignore strategically important activities to address immediate tactical issues,” the report reads.

And now?

I believe that the issue of covering all the points is really complicated, but there are some ways to act even with the aforementioned disadvantage.

1 – Education
Educate users and executives on good practices. Creating simple but effective policies is a good way to educate them. No one likes to read manuals hundreds of pages long, but something quick and straightforward might do the trick.

2 – Password Policies
It is necessary to establish more complex password policies that must be changed from time to time. In addition, you can create a password policy based on biometrics or random keys.

3 – Prohibition of the use of external devices
As much as this is seen by users as an unnecessary restriction, blocking USBs, hard drives, and more external devices can be a good way out to avoid data leaks and malware infestation, whether the infestation is intentional or not.

These are just 3 solutions that, if implemented, can help create a more robust security policy for your company.

The report

The Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2023 is based on surveys, workshops and interviews with over 300 experts and C-suite executives. The report was written in collaboration with Accenture.