Cybersecurity is crucial for businesses to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) particularly stand to benefit by safeguarding their reputation and protecting against cyber threats. With the global cybersecurity market projected to reach $170.4 billion by 2025 (according to Gartner), it’s imperative for organizations, regardless of size, to address cybersecurity challenges proactively.

Failure to tackle these challenges not only jeopardizes businesses but also impacts customers connected to their services. With 95% of cybersecurity breaches attributed to human error (Cybint), real-time solutions are essential to mitigate risks. As organizations navigate the complexities of cybersecurity, they must confront various challenges to ensure the integrity of their systems and data. By addressing these challenges head-on, businesses can mitigate the risk of data breaches and maintain trust in an increasingly digital world.

Cybersecurity is like the shield that defends your digital world! It includes tools, methods, and rules that keep your networks, gadgets, and data safe from hackers or any unauthorized meddling. You might also hear it called Information Security or System Security – all aimed at keeping your digital life secure and sound!

The advent of 5G networks has sparked curiosity among the youth, offering the promise of more efficient use of their beloved gadgets. However, it also brings forth a challenge: the risk of emotional or physical attacks on this tech-savvy generation. Cyber assailants may unlawfully penetrate the 5G wireless networks, exploiting the data collected or stored by smart and fast gadgets. These attackers, often third parties, capitalize on the complex architectures of 5G networks to carry out their malicious activities, leveraging revolutionary marketing tactics.

By 2027, the 5G infrastructure market is projected to reach 47.775 million US dollars, driven by the increasing demand for machine-to-machine (M2M) connections. It’s crucial to identify and thwart the efforts of these third-party assailants who continuously seek unauthorized access to users’ data, compromising privacy and trust in customer-centric organizations.

Mobile malware is harmful software that intentionally targets the operating systems of mobile devices, disrupting their performance. The main reason for its occurrence is the insecure usage of URLs over Wi-Fi or other internet networks. According to the 2024 Mobile Security Report, 97% of organizations face threats related to mobile malware from various vendors claiming to offer advanced security for cellular networks. Ignoring such vendors is not an option as they may introduce Trojan activities, cyber risks, and vulnerabilities.

The increasing rate of malware attacks on existing mobile phones has become a concerning theme during the COVID-19 pandemic. Various packages, such as tousanticovid.apk, covid.apk, covidMappia_v1.0.3.apk, covidMapv8.1.7.apk, and coviddetect.apk, are hidden in banking applications. When these applications are downloaded from malicious websites or associated hyperlinks, they expose mobile users to spam and other cybersecurity attacks. With the shift towards remote work, cybercriminals are expected to intensify their malware attack campaigns, making it crucial for mobile users to remain vigilant.

Nowadays, healthcare industries and supply chain departments are adopting tools that support Artificial Intelligence. Also, those tools have some glimpses of Machine Learning and NLP with which they are helpful in controlling the datasets primarily involved with patients’ info or orders in which retailers/distributors are interested.

As per the McKinsey report, more than 25 percent of healthcare organizations are investing in AI tools in this COVID-age. Even the banking sector has an impact of more than 30 percent of the analytics derived via AI/ML tools.  

Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/artificial-intelligence/notes-from-the-ai-frontier-applications-and-value-of-deep-learning#

The main loophole in using those Artificial Intelligent tools is that passwords and biometric logins are modified frequently by the patients, distributors, and other participants of the supply chain. With that, hackers can feasibly pick the pain points thereby controlling the monitoring of details like address, bank details, etc.

Since AI tools perform at minimal human input in real-times, healthcare and supply chain industries are sensing attacks of malware, ransomware strongly destroying their incentivize growth. No doubt, cybercriminals will be involved with data violence so that they can continuously gain access to that sensitive data for targeting more patients or supply chain participants.

The usage of Internet-of-Things devices is trending nowadays because of their robust reaction-time and the lesser cost they invite in processing the merits of the cloud technology. Furthermore, the solutions those devices push through their communication channels are incredible and considered by organizations comprising a varying number of workforces. However, with such growing popularity, cybercrimes are increasing continuously.

This is because cybercriminals can expose the profitable assets whose data is accessed from some industrial cloud network. In 2021, the IoT market has reached the potential of 418 billion US dollars, and we may expect it to grow to around 1.567 trillion USD by 2025.  

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/976313/global-iot-market-size/

All this is known to professional attackers primarily involved with selling the stolen data or acquiring control over the expanding operations of the businesses. With no hesitations, hackers are outwardly weaponizing the growing IoT popularity by destroying the channel nodes inviting prosperity plus the legitimate sales traffic for the organizations.

In this process, the protocols of cybersecurity maintaining and protecting the valuable data of customers have now become prominent to vulnerability.

Ransomware attacks pose unpredictable threats to businesses of all sizes, impacting both small and medium enterprises and larger organizations alike, regardless of their familiarity with data security and compliance standards. According to Check Point Research, global ransomware attacks surged by 102% in 2021, with our country experiencing the brunt of 213 attacks weekly.

During these attacks, cybercriminals deploy malware or viruses targeting mobile phones and cellular networks, infecting connected devices like smartphones and laptops. This breach allows assailants to access personal information, leaving victims vulnerable to extortion demands. With over 1,000 organizations falling victim to ransomware attacks weekly, businesses must fortify their cybersecurity measures and safeguard against online criminal activities targeting their operations

Spear-phishing attacks will easily be understood once we understand what phishing attacks are basically? So, phishing is somewhere related to social media and the cybercriminals prefer those phishing attacks because this helps them gather your card details (credit/debit), current location, or other sensitive info. Such attackers use deceptive emails or websites and show them in such a manner they look legitimate. Spear-phishing, on the other hand, is a sub-part of phishing and is its more sophisticated version. Here, online fraudulent send malicious emails, and they are sent to well-researched victims (such victims are analyzed well by the cyberattackers on the grounds of mental and emotional strengths).

According to the 2021 investigation report of Verizon, 29,207 real-time security incidents were analyzed and 5,285 were confirmed data breaches. Out of these, 36 percent of breaches involve phishing which is increased by 11 percent from the previous year. And if we talk about spear-phishing attacks, the number is actually not mentioned, but there is a discussion about credential stuffing. Approximately 95 percent of organizations suffered such stuffing which is a spear-phishing attack. And the percentage of related breaches is 61.

Source: https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/

The frequency of percentage will vary industry-by-industry but the thing which will be common is sending malicious emails and attempting to access personal data through spammed websites. Besides, there are some social media cybersecurity challenges like acquiring control over the customers’ accounts, phishing various campaigns running on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and misuse of data which is potentially important. All around the world, people are highly engaged with such social media channels primarily demanding internet services. This has made our privacy vulnerable to phishers or spear phishers, and they can confidently plan a series of events in hacking or destroying our personal wealth.

With those events, hackers would be navigating various sections of our personal Facebook or Twitter accounts and take advantage of such demonstrated weakness. And all this has created a sound disturbance in the security of social media infrastructure. Depending upon the scope of disturbance, phishing/spear-phishing attacks offer destruction to the privacy of user’s data and the cybersecurity models of businesses too. Therefore, the issues, caused by destruction like third party social media operators supporting the tactics of cybercriminals, no close inspection of phishing emails at the users’ accounts, violation of the right to information since users aren’t aware of how their security is unknowingly compromised, are challenging the cybersecurity protocols of the organizations which need to be modeled with proper control and strengthened compliance standards. 

Hacktivism is a combination of words Hack N Activism. In general, this is done with the purpose of breaking into someone’s computer and steal that information that supports political or social agendas in the wrong way. The target of hacktivists is primarily to gain their visibility on the websites of government organizations and deface their security protocols by promoting their politically influenced cause. According to the 2021 IBM X-Force report, there was 25 percent of data thefts and leak attacks (in 2020) in which hacktivists have demonstrated their interest in seeking data of multi-national corporations and the government bodies connected with them.  No matter what the intention of the hacktivists was, but such criminal attacks are a slap to government organizations taking care of the assets of their customers.

With this, a sort of motivation for challenging governments or forcing them to go against their morals is unknowingly promoted. There are many anonymous hacktivist groups working (since 2008) against disturbing the internal business processes of government or multinational organizations in the name of public welfare. They mix with the C-Level executives and continue embarrassing the government through the ideology of taking revenge with their online campaigns supporting regular flow DDoS attacks. This is a newer version of breaking into cybersecurity systems of the government so that the protests of hacktivists may spread throughout the world and launch a shuttle of defacement of the reputation immorally.  

Dronejacking is a method cybercriminals use to exploit toy-like drones, gaining control over personal information easily. According to an Intel report, drones have targeted deliveries, camera crews, and hobbyists, bypassing enforced security standards. While drones are valuable tools for farmers, photographers, shippers, and law enforcement agencies, they also pose a new wave of cyber threats. Dronejacking enables cybercriminals to potentially cause financial harm to companies like Amazon and UPS, known for supplying essentials. Hackers can use dronejacking to determine package delivery schedules, posing a serious threat to consumer success and brand reputation.

Apart from financial implications, dronejacking presents other risks, such as the loss of expensive drones and damage to private property like commercial airplanes. This allows hackers to gauge response times and capabilities of drone controllers. Without staying updated on the latest security software and protection solutions, commercial operators and cybersecurity teams of larger organizations remain vulnerable to drone attacks and easy targets for anonymous criminals.

Social engineering is concerned with a type of cyberattacks where hackers focus on tricks and non-tech strategies rather than using core tech approaches or tools to trap the users. There are some preventive measures associated, and they are setting the spam filters from low to high, instant denial or deletion of help requests, researching the sources of unsolicited emails, and many more.

However, hackers are sophisticated nowadays and understand the frequency with which we are adopting such measures. They can feasibly take the legitimate access to our personal info and then, exploit us really well on the grounds of personality weaknesses. As per the report of Google, most of the SEAs or Social Engineering attacks are phishing via official emails or malicious websites which almost look authentic.

Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42979-020-00443-1

In this graph, there are a number of accounts up to 5000 flagged by Google, and they are trapped by the phishing attacks initiated by government-backed attackers. The number of attacks seems to fluctuate, yet it is clear that such SEAs are tracking our communications done through instant messaging or video conferencing. Furthermore, many of the knowledge-based workers, business owners, artisans (the number is near to 260 million) are remotely working in this pandemic era and this has made them vulnerable to such Social Engineering Attacks. Those cyber-attackers can smartly deploy multiple tactics for entering into their sensitive information like passwords, usernames, and banking details. All this will look legitimate as they will be using trademarks, logos of the well-known companies whose accuracy will be 99 percent or a little higher.

As soon as their websites and emails are clicked, you will be tricked and then, the height of your awareness is primarily destroyed. Furthermore, the organizations are also prone to such steals as hackers are easily breaking their business software backed by systems adhering to cybersecurity protocols. So, the security of their infrastructure is inclined towards the likelihood of success of these cybercriminals well-versed with how they should be using the preventive measures of social engineering for deploying their malicious agendas?

Internal politics is something that everyone is aware of and this happens in every organization. Whether you talk about a tech-giant or a well-reputed automation agency, employees are assigned with some privileges and this makes the finances vulnerable to huge losses. All this gives rise to insider threats. They have grown up by 47 percent in the past 2 years and successfully inviting cybercriminals to nourish their fraudulent activities well.

More than 34 percent of businesses are affected every year by such threats and this is giving the way to accidental breaches for breaking the trust and reputation of customers. Those insider threats are underestimated by the businesses a lot as they think it is important for them to deal with the complex market trends rather than giving such threats a look! All this disturbs the current status of a company as their employees have signed some deals with hackers for providing them the important information about the company.

Later, those cyber criminals infect the security systems of organizations well which are managing the business complexities well in this second layer. If the organizations keep on underestimating them and keep on delaying in limiting the privileges, then it would be difficult for them to put a halt to the destructive and careless behavior of their employees somewhere challenging the pre-established secure protocols of cybersecurity.  

Evolving ransomware, sophisticated phishing attacks, AI-driven threats, supply chain vulnerabilities, and increasing IoT risks pose significant challenges to cybersecurity in 2024.

Future Cybersecurity Challenges Anticipated challenges include quantum computing threats, AI manipulation, IoT vulnerabilities, skill shortages, and regulatory complexities, demanding continuous adaptation in cybersecurity strategies.

5 Main Threats to Cybersecurity are Ransomware, phishing attacks, advanced persistent threats (APTs), insecure IoT devices, and supply chain vulnerabilities remain key threats, requiring robust defense measures.

A