Greater incident complexity, a shift in the way threat actors use stolen data, and a rise in US class actions will drive the cyber threat landscape in 2023, according to a Beazley report.
The Cyber Services Snapshot report presents global data on incidents handled by Beazley Cyber Services including cause of loss by industry, ransomware vectors, business email compromise, and data exfiltration.
These data points provide a real-time view into incidents reported to the re/insurer, revealing an ongoing picture of emerging cyber risk.
The report also noted that, as a category, fraudulent instruction experienced big growth as a cause of loss in 2022, up 13% year-over-year.
According to analysts, this trend continues to be quite high, especially when it comes to small organisations.
In order to combat this vulnerability, the report suggests that organisations must get smarter about educating employees to spot fraudulent instruction tactics, like spoofed emails or domain names.
Other areas of vulnerability organisations need to be watchful for, according to the report, include social engineering and spear phishing, bypassing of Multi-Factor Authentication, targeting of Managed Service Providers, and compromising of cloud environments.
Russ Cohen, Beazley’s Head of US Cyber Services, commented: “At first glance, things hardly seem particularly new as we enter 2023: threat actors are still using the same kinds of ransomware vectors to attack, and we’re still talking about the same need for education and controls.
“But look beneath the surface, and it quickly becomes evident that targeted organisations are facing greater incident complexity than ever before. As threat actors bring new sophistication to their techniques and adapt to improved cybersecurity efforts, more and more companies will realise they can no longer count on the default configuration of off-the-shelf IT solutions and tools.
