As we step into 2025, Securonix offers key predictions on the evolving cybersecurity landscape. Reflecting on 2024, we saw a surge in cloud intrusions, malware-free attacks, and escalating breach costs, underscoring the urgent need for advanced defenses. With innovations like AI-powered insider threat detection and behavioral analytics leading the charge, the future holds transformative potential.

In 2025, Securonix foresees AI revolutionizing SOCs, quantum-safe algorithms addressing encryption risks, and greater collaboration through shared threat intelligence. MSSPs and advanced data management solutions like Cyber Data Fabric will play pivotal roles in shaping efficient, proactive cybersecurity strategies for the challenges ahead.

Here’s a glimpse into 2024 and crystal ball view into 2025 from Securonix. 

2024: Year in Review

●      Rise in Threat Activity: Threat activity surged with cloud intrusions rising by 75% as organizations increasingly adopted cloud solutions

●      Shift in Attack Strategies: Malware-free attacks grew, leveraging legitimate tools within environments instead of external malware

●      Escalating Costs: The mean cost of a data breach had reached $4.88 million, thereby pointing to the severe need for advanced cybersecurity measures

●      AI Integration: Securonix unveiled Eon, which integrated such innovation as insider threat detection through psycholinguistics, a clear example of how the industry was now turning to AI

●      Insider Threats: Studies indicated that 60% of breaches occur through insider threats, making advanced behavioral analytics crucial

2025: Prepping for the Future

●      AI in Cybersecurity: AI will make the SOCs more efficient, reducing the workload of analysts and making responses more efficient

●      Quantum Computing and Encryption: The risks associated with emerging Quantum technologies have threatened encryption protocols, leading to the need for quantum-safe algorithms

●      Insider Threats on Rise: The push for return-to-office poses insider risks with employees and hence the need for behavioral analytics is key

●      Collaboration Among Organizations: Shared threat intelligence will increase, allowing organizations to identify and fight threats together

●      Data Pipeline Management: Solutions for effective data routing, such as Securonix’s Cyber Data Fabric, will be critical in managing SIEM costs and optimizing analytics

●      Expansion of MSSPs: MSSPs will become more prominent, supporting hybrid SOC models and handling advanced threat responses

The post Cybersecurity in 2025: Key trends and predictions from Securonix appeared first on CIO Dimension.

Securonix, Inc. announced that Kash Shaikh has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer and member of its Board of Directors, effective immediately.

Kash succeeds Nayaki Nayyar who has been serving as the CEO of the security vendor since December 2022. Nayaki has decided to step down and focus the next phase of her career on public Board service, the company said in a press release. 

Kash is a seasoned enterprise technology Executive with Fortune 50 experience and has a record of driving profitable growth across Software, SaaS, and AI Infrastructure markets. 

He has over 30 years of experience of fostering business transformation and delivering innovative technology solutions for global enterprise organizations. He most recently served as President and CEO of Virtana, a leading hybrid-cloud infrastructure observability solutions provider.

Prior to Virtana, Shaikh served as Global Vice President and General Manager for Dell’s Enterprise Solutions Unit. Shaikh has also held leadership and executive positions at Ruckus Wireless, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, and Nortel Networks.

The post Securonix appoints Kash Shaikh as President & CEO as Nayaki Nayyar steps down appeared first on CIO Dimension.

70% of businesses reported increased spending on proactive security solutions, such as attack surface management and risk-based vulnerability management, over the past year, according to a new research from Titania. The report, Emerging Best Practice in the use of Proactive Security Solutions, indicates a marked increase in investments aimed at preemptively mitigating cyber threats. This notably outpaces investments in both preventative and reactive measures.

The study, completed in partnership with Omdia, a global analyst and advisory leader, surveyed over 400 security decision-makers in North America, the UK, France, and Germany. It underscores the acceleration in adoption of proactive security measures from three key drivers: ‘reducing the opportunity for threats’, ‘reducing the mean time to remediate known vulnerabilities’, and ‘minimizing attack surface’. 

Key findings of the report include:

• Strategic Implementation: A significant portion of organizations, particularly those with mature security postures, are strategically deploying proactive security solutions. This trend is especially prevalent among larger organizations. This growth is particularly pronounced in EMEA, where 74% of respondents increased their budgets, compared to 67% in North America. The desire is particularly strong amongst financial services organizations (54%) and critical infrastructure organizations (53%) including energy and utilities companies. In addition, almost half (47%) reported that their top cybersecurity goals for the next 12-24 months are to reduce the opportunity for threats with proactive security. Conversely, only 27% of organizations plan to improve tactical outcomes, such as better threat prevention, detection and response.

• Enhanced Security Posture: Respondents report a strong desire to improve security posture and expect that the broader integration of proactive security tools will greatly improve attack surface management and security control optimization. Currently, a large majority of respondents report having limited visibility into the security posture of network assets (firewalls, switches and routers) and long cadences between assessments – with roughly half of organizations checking network devices at most, monthly. 
  Organizations are also much more likely to only monitor all devices in critical segments (or simply look at a sample of devices), than to monitor every device in their networks. Notably, critical infrastructure organizations (i.e., energy, utilities, and transportation) report much lower confidence than other industries in their ability to maintain adequate network segmentation and prevent unauthorized access to networks.
  
  
• Disruption Anticipation: Almost half (48%) of all respondents anticipate a high level of organizational disruption due to the broader adoption of proactive security solutions, highlighting the transformative impact these measures are expected to have.

“This research vividly illustrates a widespread and rapid shift towards proactive security to improve operational readiness and resilience. Organizations are recognizing the critical need to stay ahead of known threats and shut down attacks by investing in solutions that offer real-time visibility of their security posture and remediating action that will continuously minimize their exposure.”

Tom Beese, Executive Chairman, Titania

The post Over 70% businesses in advanced economies increased spending on proactive security appeared first on CIO Dimension.

58% of enterprises says that detecting vulnerabilities is getting more difficult as their attack surface increases in complexity, size and rate of change, according to a survey by security testing platform Synack. The survey led by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) that shows challenges in scaling penetration testing to meet the needs of large enterprises.

The report commissioned by Synack leverages insights from 200 technical decision-makers at U.S. organizations with at least 1,000 employees. Half of the survey respondents reported it was more difficult to manage their attack surface today than it was a year ago, whether because of third-party risk, data complexity or increasing attacker sophistication.

Other highlights of the report include:

• Organizations reported pentesting currently covers only 47% of business-critical apps
• 60% of respondents reported finding it difficult to test frequently enough to keep up with the pace of application development, with three in four saying it’s likely they will consider platform-based testing solutions like Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS)
• 65% recognize that traditional pentesting is not a viable approach to cover their attack surface. 

“Point-in-time pentests have been a staple of security programs for so long, it can be hard to move to a continuous approach,” said Dr. Mark Kuhr, Synack CTO and co-founder. “This survey shows security teams are aware of PTaaS’s potential to accelerate business transformation and keep pace with modern software development, even though few have made the leap.”

Only 32% of respondents said they use pentesting to improve overall security strategies and posture. Most either reported using pentesting for compliance or to achieve tactical objectives like finding and fixing vulnerabilities.

The post Detecting vulnerabilities gets more difficult as pentestings miss the mark  appeared first on CIO Dimension.

According to a latest report, nearly half (49.6%) of all internet traffic came from bots in 2023—a 2% increase over the previous year. For the fifth consecutive year, the proportion of web traffic associated with bad bots grew to 32% in 2023, up from 30.2% in 2022, while traffic from human users decreased to 50.4%. Automated traffic is costing organizations billions (USD) annually due to attacks on websites, APIs, and applications.

The 2024 Imperva Bad Bot Report by cybersecurity company Thales presents a global analysis of automated bot traffic across the internet. The 2023 bot traffic, according to the company, is the highest level Imperva has reported since it began monitoring automated traffic in 2013. 

Nanhi Singh, General Manager, Application Security at Imperva, a Thales company, said: 

“Bots are one of the most pervasive and growing threats facing every industry. From simple web scraping to malicious account takeover, spam, and denial of service, bots negatively impact an organization’s bottom line by degrading online services and requiring more investment in infrastructure and customer support. Organizations must proactively address the threat of bad bots as attackers sharpen their focus on API-related abuses that can lead to account compromise or data exfiltration.”

Key trends identified in the 2024 Imperva Bad Bot Report include:

• Global average of bad bot traffic reached 32%: Ireland (71%), Germany (67.5%), and Mexico (42.8%), saw the highest levels of bad bot traffic in 2023. The US also saw a slightly higher ratio of bad bot traffic at 35.4% compared to 2022 (32.1%).

• Growing use of generative AI connected to the rise in simple bots: Rapid adoption of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) resulted in the volume of simple bots increasing to 39.6% in 2023, up from 33.4% in 2022. The technology uses web scraping bots and automated crawlers to feed training models, while enabling nontechnical users to write automated scripts for their own use.

• Account takeover is a persistent business risk: Account takeover (ATO) attacks increased 10% in 2023, compared to the same period in the prior year. Notably, 44% of all ATO attacks targeted API endpoints, compared to 35% in 2022. Of all login attempts across the internet, 11% were associated with account takeover. The industries that saw the highest volume of ATO attacks in 2023 were Financial Services (36.8%), Travel (11.5%), and Business Services (8%).

• APIs are a popular vector for attack: Automated threats caused a significant 30% of API attacks in 2023. Among them, 17% were bad bots exploiting business logic vulnerabilities—a flaw within the API’s design and implementation that allows attackers to manipulate legitimate functionality and gain access to sensitive data or user accounts. Cybercriminals use automated bots to find and exploit APIs, which act as a direct pathway to sensitive data, making them a prime target for business logic abuse.

• Every industry has a bot problem: For a second consecutive year, Gaming (57.2%) saw the largest proportion of bad bot traffic. Meanwhile, Retail (24.4%), Travel (20.7%), and Financial Services (15.7%) experienced the highest volume of bot attacks. The proportion of advanced bad bots, those that closely mimic human behavior and evade defenses, was highest on Law & Government (75.8%), Entertainment (70.8%), and Financial Services (67.1%) websites.

• Bad bot traffic originating from residential ISPs grows to 25.8%: Early bad bot evasion techniques relied on masquerading as a user agent (browser) commonly used by legitimate human users. Bad bots masquerading as mobile user agents accounted for 44.8% of all bad bot traffic in the past year, up from 28.1% just five years ago. Sophisticated actors combine mobile user agents with the use of residential or mobile ISPs. Residential proxies allow bot operators to evade detection by making it appear as if the origin of the traffic is a legitimate, ISP-assigned residential IP address.

“Automated bots will soon surpass the proportion of internet traffic coming from humans, changing the way that organizations approach building and protecting their websites and applications,” continued Singh. “As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent. Organizations must invest in bot management and API security tools to manage the threat from malicious, automated traffic.”

The post Bad bots on the rise as bot traffic starts to dominate the Internet  appeared first on CIO Dimension.

Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 recently released the Ransomware Retrospective 2024: Unit 42 Leak Site Analysis and Incident Response report 2024. As part of the Ransomware Retrospective, they studied 3,998 leak site posts from various ransomware groups. Leak sites are platforms where threat actors publicly disclose stolen data as a means of coercing victims into paying ransom.

Key findings from this investigation: Unit 42 saw a 49% YoY increase in multi-extortion ransomware attacks from 2022 – 2023 globally. In India, the manufacturing sector has been the most targeted industry for ransomware extortion in 2023. Of the 3,998 leak site posts from 2023 globally, LockBit ransomware remains the most active, with 928 organizations accounting for 23% of the total. LockBit is also the most active group in APAC and India (note: this was before the recent law enforcement disruption of LockBit). At least 25 new ransomware leak sites were observed in 2023; of which Akira led the way. 

Anil Valluri, MD and VP, India and SAARC, Palo Alto Networks, said, “In India, the Manufacturing sector has emerged as the primary target for ransomware attacks over the past year. This unsettling trend underscores the critical vulnerabilities within the Indian manufacturing sector, where limited visibility into operational technology (OT) systems, inadequate network monitoring, and suboptimal cyber-hygiene implementation have left organizations exposed. Organizations must implement enterprise-wide Zero Trust network architecture to create layers of security that limit an attacker from successfully moving laterally around the network.”

The 3,998 posts from ransomware leak sites represented a 49% increase compared to 2022, where 2,679 posts were observed globally. This increase can be attributed to zero-day exploits targeting vulnerabilities for MOVEit Transfer SQL Injection and GoAnywhere MFT, among others.

As further evidence, when reviewing the number of compromises reported by ransomware leak sites, sporadic spikes were observed (see figure below). These loosely aligned with periods where ransomware groups began exploiting specific vulnerabilities.

Unit 42 2024 Incident Response Report: Speed of Exfiltration + Vulnerabilities Driving Activity

Unit 42 analyzed more than 600 incidents from 250 organizations for the 2024 Unit 42 Incident Response Report. This investigation went beyond ransomware leaksite posts into the overall casework volume. While phishing has historically been a popular tactic with attackers, the report found that it is declining, but only sort of.

From a one-third share of initial access incidents in 2022, phishing has dropped to just 17% in 2023. This indicates a potential de-prioritization of phishing as cybercriminals adapt to more technologically advanced – and perhaps more efficient – infiltration methods. More advanced threat actors are moving away from traditional and interactive phishing campaigns to less noticeable and possibly automated methods of exploiting system weaknesses and pre-existing credential leaks. Other key findings from the report include:

●      More-Sophisticated Threat Actors Are Gaining Initial Access Differently: There has been a discernible rise in the exploitation of software and API vulnerabilities. Exploiting such vulnerabilities accounted for 38.60% of the initial access points in 2023, up from 28.20% in 2022.

• Threat Actors Grab Data Indiscriminately: In 93% of incidents, threat actors took data indiscriminately rather than searching for specific data. This is up from 2022, when 81% of cases involved non-targeted data theft. In 2021, it was even lower at 67%. The surge points to a growing trend among cybercriminals who seem to be casting a wider net, gathering any data they can access rather than expending effort to locate and extract particular datasets.
• Extortion tactics to maximize yields: Interestingly, while the rate of harassment and other extortion tactics w.r.t. Ransomware has remained steady over the past few years, the rate of harassment in cases where payments were made has jumped by 27x since 2021.
• Higher demands, lower payouts: In 2023, median ransom demands increased from $650,000 to $695,000 (3%↑) but median payouts decreased from $350,000 to $237,500 (32%↓). This can be potentially attributed to organizations calling-in Incident Response teams with negotiation capabilities (which fewer did in the past).

Huzefa Motiwala, Director, Systems Engineering, India and SAARC, said “While the surge in ransomware incidents is concerning, there are glimmers of hope amidst the challenges. The data reveals a promising shift in organizations’ response strategies, with a notable increase in median ransom demands countered by a decrease in median payouts. Since organizations are more willing to call-in Incident Response teams, threat actors are happy to take the path of least resistance. Which, in most scenarios, is to grab what they can get, and move on.”

The post Manufacturing the worst hit by ransomware in India: Palo Alto research appeared first on CIO Dimension.

The rapid adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) technologies has led to a significant increase in sophisticated phishing campaigns. A recent study by Abnormal Security reveals that 80% of these campaigns now leverage GenAI tools, marking a critical turning point in the fight against digital fraud.

The integration of AI in phishing attacks has led to a dramatic 1265% increase in such incidents since 2022, as reported by InfoSecurity Magazine. The availability of free or trial-based AI tools, such as ChatGPT, has made it easier for cybercriminals to generate convincing phishing content, with the potential to create up to 30 templates per hour.

AI’s role in evolving phishing techniques

AI’s proficiency in generating high-quality content has significantly reduced the effectiveness of traditional phishing detection methods. AI-based proofreading tools can eliminate common phishing indicators, making attacks more challenging to identify.

The rapid response rates of AI models, like ChatGPT’s 15-20 seconds and the 3.5 Turbo Model API’s under 3 seconds, further enhance the efficiency of these attacks.

Lukas Junokas, Chief Technology Officer at Breezit, an event planning platform, shares a challenging encounter with a phishing email that closely imitated the writing style of a high-ranking executive, asking for confidential information. This email managed to evade standard detection filters because of its authenticity.

“Generative AI has undeniably transformed phishing, making attacks more personalized and harder to detect. The new challenge lies in the arms race between evolving AI capabilities in both creating and detecting sophisticated threats,” Lukas noted.

The emergence of malicious-AI-as-a-service

The concept of ‘Malicious-AI-as-a-Service’ is gaining traction, facilitating the automation and scaling of phishing operations. This development lowers the entry barrier for cybercrime, enabling even those with minimal technical skills to execute sophisticated attacks.

Valentin Rusu, Head of Malware Research and Analysis at Heimdal, highlights the potential dangers of Reinforced Learning in black-hat hacking.

“Imagine a hacker training an AI to break security systems through trial and error.” “This could lead to unprecedented cybersecurity challenges,” Rusu remarked.

Adelina Deaconu, Heimdal’s MXDR (SOC) Team Lead, adds that genAI has the potential to exploit personal vulnerabilities and advises people to step back if something seems suspicious.

“I’m especially worried about how generative AI can now analyze and exploit personal vulnerabilities and emotions, making the emails seem more convincing. I advise people to step back, verify information, and report any concerns. If something seems suspicious, it likely is,” says Adelina.

Brian David Crane, founder of CallerSmart, an app for investigating mystery phone numbers, believes that generative AI can scale up spear phishing and vishing attacks.

“With generative AI, cyberattacks can happen at scale, be relentless with malware code modification and generative chatbots using spear phishing & vishing attacks with an automated selection of targets based on publicly available data or information,” says David.

 Statistical insights: the growing AI threat

• 83% of companies prioritize AI over other technologies (Notta AI).
• 51% of businesses rely on AI for threat detection and remediation (EFT Sure).
• One in five people will open AI-generated phishing emails (SoSafe Awareness).
• 69% of organizations stated that they could not avert cyber-attacks without AI (CapGemini).

The way forward: awareness and vigilance

As AI continues to evolve, organizations and individuals must stay informed and exert caution when opening emails.

 “People should pay attention to strange email addresses, tone of the email, requests for sensitive information, signature and formatting, and should avoid clicking on URLs (hover over them first and see if the displayed URL matches the visible text),” says Adelina.

Understanding the capabilities and potential misuse of AI in phishing is the first step toward developing more effective countermeasures.

Source: Heimdal Security

The post The escalating threat of AI-driven phishing appeared first on CIO Dimension.

Palo Alto Networks has roped in Kunal Ruvala as Senior Vice President and General Manager for India. Kunal will lead the company’s India Development Centers with responsibility across all areas of the Network Security Product function and will oversee the next phase of growth and innovation for Palo Alto Networks India.

Kunal reports to Anand Oswal, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Network Security. In this role, he will partner with Anil Valluri, MD and VP, India & SAARC, who continues to lead the go-to-market efforts across the region. Kunal will also oversee partnerships with India’s higher education ecosystem to drive co-innovation in R&D efforts. 

Kunal has deep experience driving innovation at scale and leading growth initiatives at several organizations including Dell, RSA and EMC, and most recently as President of Honeywell Technology Solutions. He’s also been involved in Employee Resource Groups and is an inclusion and diversity champion.

The post Palo Alto appoints Kunal Ruvala as SVP & GM for its India Development Centers appeared first on CIO Dimension.

A new forecast from Gartner indicates that Generative AI is all set to transform the cybersecurity space in India. The emergence of generative AI (GenAI) has caused one of the biggest disruptions in digital and business sectors in the last couple of years. “Through ethical, safe and secure implementation of this technology, CISOs can improve the performance of their security functions and enhance organizational resilience,” said Abhyuday Data, Director Analyst at Gartner. 

While managing GenAI presents inevitable challenges, there are also external factors to consider, such as regulatory concerns and the rapid adoption of cloud computing.

To effectively handle the combined impact of these forces and enhance their organization’s cybersecurity program in 2024, Gartner recommends that CISOs in India must prioritize two top cybersecurity trends:

GenAI Transforming the Cybersecurity Market: GenAI introduces new attack surfaces requiring  changes to application and data security practices and user monitoring. Gartner predicts that by 2025, GenAI will cause a spike in the cybersecurity resources required to secure it, causing more than a 15% incremental spend on application and data security.

Gartner analysts said organizations should conduct proof of concepts before incorporating GenAI into their cybersecurity programs, beginning with application security and security operations. A policy for overseeing the introduction of GenAI-based products into the organization must also be established, to ensure that all internal teams using this technology understand and adhere to a set of unified policies.

Bridging the Communications Gap with Cybersecurity Outcome-Driven Metrics: Outcome driven metrics (ODMs) are central to creating a defensible cybersecurity investment strategy. They provide a credible and defensible expression of risk appetite that supports direct investment.

“ODMs enable SRM (security & risk management) leaders to convey the value of cybersecurity investment beyond the importance of regulatory compliance,” said Data. “Organizations seeking an approach to measure cybersecurity value that resonates with executives and supports practical investment decisions must adopt ODMs.”

Spending in security to grow

Gartner forecasts that end-user spending on security and risk management (SRM) in India is expected to total $2.9 billion in 2024, an increase of 12.4% from 2023. 

Indian organizations will continue to increase their security spending through 2024 due to legacy IT modernization using cloud technology, industry demand for digital platforms, updated regulatory environment, and continuous remote/hybrid work.

In 2024, cloud security spending in India is projected to record the highest growth. The adoption of cloud and multi-cloud presents security challenges, causing an increased focus on cloud security by Indian organizations.

The post GenAI will transform the cybersecurity market in India: Gartner  appeared first on CIO Dimension.

Cybersecurity leader Vinod Kumar Gupta has joined TMF Group as Director, Global Head – Cyber Security Operations & GRC Practice. He joins TMF from SBI Card where he served as the Vice President of Cyber Security Operations. 

TMF Group is a global provider of compliance and critical business administration services and is present in 125 locations worldwide. 

In this new role, he will oversee the company’s cybersecurity operations, vulnerability management, GRC, budget and cyber strategies. 

Vinod comes with over two decades of experience having served a number of key roles in the cybersecurity domain for companies like HCL Technologies, Motherson Technology Services, Allied Digital Services and Omnitech InfoSolutions. He has a proven track record of developing and implementing cyber security strategies and policies, managing technology risk & compliance and ensuring cyber assurance and resilience. 

The post Vinod Kumar Gupta joins TMF Group as Global Head of Cyber Security Operations & GRC Practice appeared first on CIO Dimension.