As of 2023, roughly 39% of all organizations have hosted more than half their workloads on cloud platforms, according to a Cybersecurity Insiders report from Fortinet. With the cloud, organizations of all shapes and sizes, in every sector, have found the flexibility, scalability, agility, and availability they were promised to accelerate and grow their operations.
However, the growing adoption of cloud platforms goes hand in hand with growing cyber threats. As more and more organizations take advantage of cloud platforms, cybercriminals will discover more opportunities to exploit cloud vulnerabilities to exfiltrate sensitive data, halt an organization’s operations, or hold data for ransom.
For all the cloud industry trends you should be paying attention to as you seek further opportunities to push your organization further, among the most important are this upcoming year’s cloud security trends.
Keeping in touch with the latest in cybersecurity trends ensures you are up to the task of proactively defending your cloud against a constantly evolving landscape of cyber threats, mitigating risks, and protecting not only your data but also your compliance standing and your reputation. To get you started, we’re going to dive into the hottest cybersecurity trends of 2024 for the cloud industry.
2024 Cloud Industry Trends and the Cyber Landscape
Looking back on 2023’s cybersecurity landscape and forward to the year ahead, Google’s 2024 Cloud Cybersecurity Forecast draws on its security expertise to anticipate next year’s biggest trends in cybercrime, including:
- The use of AI in cyber attacks
- Attackers exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities
- An increase in hacktivism and other politically motivated cyber attacks related to global conflicts, elections, and the upcoming 2024 Olympics in Paris, France
Google’s selection of cybersecurity trends to watch out for in 2024 highlight a more intelligent, versatile landscape of threats and busier criminals, combining new technology trends of 2024, such as AI to find new exploits and deepfakes to engineer sophisticated phishing campaigns, with old standbys such as finding and exploiting new zero-day vulnerabilities.
Exploring Cask’s Top 5 Cloud Security Trends of 2024
For all the power of the cloud, there is no shortage of vulnerabilities in enterprise-level cloud ecosystems that cybercriminals can exploit—many of which are the result of improper cloud system configuration, integration, or monitoring.
Reduced visibility in and control over data, misconfigured cloud storage settings, incomplete data deletion, and compliance or migration issues can all open holes in your cloud platform for bad actors to slip in and make off with sensitive data. Every new cloud industry trend, too, presents new opportunities for cyber attacks.
Protecting your cloud from cyberattacks means working hard to stay on top of IT trends and maintaining an up-to-date view of the cybersecurity landscape. Let’s dive into five of what we’re expecting to be the biggest cybersecurity trends of 2024 in cloud environments:
1: The Rise of AI and ML Cybersecurity Tools
AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have been for years and continue to be one of the hottest IT trends. It presents new tools and opportunities for cybercriminals to play with and execute their attacks—such as in an adversarial machine learning attack in which attackers exploit a cloud-based facial recognition system to poison its data set and compromise its performance.
However, AI and ML will prove to be just as powerful as a tool for cybersecurity incident response and prevention. In 2024, AI and ML cybersecurity tools will become truly indispensable, providing:
- Advanced Threat Detection through the analysis of vast datasets and identifying patterns indicative of malicious activity, enabling prompt detection and response to sophisticated cyber threats
- Automated Response to cyber threats, minimizing the time between detection and mitigation and thus reducing the impact of attacks
- Behavioral Analysis to identify anomalies and potential insider threats based on deviations from established patterns
- Adaptive Security Measures that evolve with changing threat landscapes to provide a dynamic defense against emerging cyber threats
- Fraud Prevention using AI and ML’s effectiveness at identifying patterns associated with fraudulent activities such as financial fraud, identity theft, and other cybercrimes.
- Predictive Analytics to allow cybersecurity professionals to proactively implement countermeasures to potential future cyber threats to their organizations
- Reduced False Positives in security algorithms
- Scalability against the increasing volume and complexity of cyber threats
- Continuous Learning and adaptation to evolving threats, ensuring that your cloud cybersecurity defenses remain effective over time
2: Sophisticated Phishing Attacks, Deepfakes, and Insider Threats
One of the easiest parts of your computer network for cyber criminals to exploit, whether in the cloud or on-premises, isn’t your hardware or your software—it’s your wetware. Insider threats can be either malicious or unintentional. Employees or trusted individuals can compromise security by accident or with malicious intent.
This has always been true, but with the advent of AI-powered deepfake technology growing more convincing than ever before, phishing attacks and insider threats take on a whole new dimension of complexity.
For example, take the recent example of a multinational company that lost over $25 million in a scam after an employee in their Hong Kong office was brought onto a conference call with a digitally recreated version of the company’s CFO and other officers.
The users of your cloud platforms hold the keys to the kingdom, and your cybersecurity team has a responsibility to continue educating users of the new reality of phishing and social engineering in a world where a person’s voice and even appearance can be deepfaked.
3: Protecting Enterprise Cloud Ecosystems With the Blockchain
One of the more interesting cybersecurity trends of 2024 that could have applications in protecting your organization’s cloud ecosystem is the blockchain. In the context of cybersecurity, blockchain technology relies on decentralization and distributed control to eliminate single failure points and reduce the risk of centralized breaches.
Because the blockchain provides immutable record-keeping through cryptographic hashing and consensus mechanisms, it can protect data on your cloud against tampering and enable secure and auditable data sharing. Every transaction on the blockchain is traceable and auditable, allowing for a transparent and verifiable record of activities within the enterprise cloud environment.
4: Decentralizing Protection With Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture (CSMA)
Similar to the blockchain, Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture (CSMA) is another cybersecurity trend of 2024 we’re keeping an eye on. CSMA is a decentralized and adaptive approach to cybersecurity that replaces traditional perimeter-based security models.
In CSMA, security is applied at the individual device or service level rather than relying on a centralized gateway. By applying security policies directly at the endpoint and focusing on device-to-device authentication, CSMA ensures that only authenticated and authorized devices can communicate within the enterprise cloud environment while reducing reliance on central gateways.
We’re expecting 2024’s cloud security trends to include implementing decentralized security perimeters in the cloud using CSMA. Adopting a decentralized approach means applying security to individual devices and services while following a zero-trust model that minimizes the risk of lateral movement by potential attackers.
With security services distributed across the cloud environment, the ability to micro-segment networks to contain security breaches, self-healing capabilities, continuous monitoring, and dynamic threat intelligence, CSMA is a powerful solution for rapid and effective threat detection and response in the cloud.
5: Mitigating Cyber Incident Damage With Cybersecurity Insurance
One of the more interesting things we expect to be a major trend in cybersecurity for 2024 is cybersecurity insurance. Cyber attacks have become so commonplace that your cloud security strategy has to take into account not if a cyber attack affects your organization, but when—and with each passing year, the damage done by cyber attacks becomes costlier and costlier.
One of the essential elements of your organization’s cybersecurity incident prevention and response strategy is your ability to mitigate the damage of a successful cyber attack against your organization, getting your operations back up and running with minimal damage to your reputation as well as your finances.
By purchasing cybersecurity insurance, your organization can receive incident response support as well as coverage for:
- Data breach associated costs, including legal expenses and loss of income due to a cyber attack
- Reputation management and public relations efforts in the aftermath of a security incident
- Legal liabilities
- Third-party liabilities
- Costs associated with cyber extortion attempts
As the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve and response to cloud data breaches and other incidents becomes costlier in 2024, we expect this cybersecurity trend to take off.
Keep Up With Cybersecurity and Cloud Industry Trends With Cask
As the cyber threat ecosystem evolves, so too must the world of cybersecurity—especially for organizations in the defense contracting space where the data at stake in a breach could be vital to national security.
In 2024, we expect the world to continue moving into the cloud—and cyber criminals with it. While there are disturbing new trends in cybercrime to contend with, such as the rise of adversarial ML attacks and AI-assisted deep fakes, there are also many new tools that cybersecurity professionals should keep an eye on to continue protecting their organizations.
As the technology trends of 2024 take shape, the cybersecurity experts at Cask are dedicated to maintaining cutting-edge knowledge of the latest threats and protections so we can build secure and resilient cloud infrastructure and defend it from harm. From engineering secure cloud platforms to defending your data fortress, we are here to empower your organization with the latest cloud security trends year round.
Contact us today to learn more about how our trusted cloud cybersecurity solutions can support your operational excellence.
Cloud Security FAQs
What are some key cybersecurity trends to watch out for in 2024 for the cloud industry?
In 2024, some key cybersecurity trends to watch out for in the cloud industry include the rise of AI and ML cybersecurity tools, sophisticated phishing attacks, deepfakes, insider threats, protecting enterprise cloud ecosystems with blockchain technology, and implementing Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture (CSMA).
How can AI and ML be used in cybersecurity incident response and prevention in 2024?
AI and ML cybersecurity tools in 2024 will provide advanced threat detection, automated response to cyber threats, behavioral analysis for identifying anomalies and insider threats, adaptive security measures, fraud prevention, predictive analytics for proactive countermeasures, reduced false positives, scalability against increasing cyber threats, continuous learning, and adaptation to evolving threats.
What is Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture (CSMA) and how can it enhance cloud security in 2024?
CSMA is a decentralized approach to cybersecurity that replaces traditional perimeter-based security models. By applying security at the individual device level and focusing on device-to-device authentication, CSMA minimizes the risk of lateral movement by attackers, enables micro-segmentation of networks, self-healing capabilities, continuous monitoring, dynamic threat intelligence, and rapid threat detection and response in the cloud.
How can cybersecurity insurance help mitigate the damage of cyber incidents in 2024?
Cybersecurity insurance in 2024 can provide coverage for data breach costs, legal expenses, loss of income due to a cyber attack, reputation management, public relations efforts, legal liabilities, third-party liabilities, and costs associated with cyber extortion attempts. As cyber attacks become more costly, cybersecurity insurance can help organizations mitigate the financial and reputational damage of successful cyber incidents.
