Your employees are overloaded with passwords for different websites and applications at work and at home, and the human element makes password management all the more essential for bolstering your security.
Whether they are weak or stolen outright, passwords are the gateway to your sensitive data and applications, and using a robust password management system can reduce the risk of threat actors gaining access to key systems.
Combined with multifactor authentication (MFA), password management enables you to securely store credentials, and auto-fill passwords across applications and websites while using strong encryption to make sure to limit access to approved users. Employing a Zero Trust approach can also further enhance security as employees only have credentials for information and applications that are necessary for them to do their jobs.
Password management is especially essential for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) who have limited IT resources for security – bolstering password management is an example of where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in an era where password-related attacks are a growing security threat.
Common threats to passwords today include brute force attacks, where attackers repeatedly try to guess a password through trial and errors; dictionary attacks that guess real words and phrases commonly used for passwords; and keylogger attacks, which use software to record each keystroke to identify a user’s login credentials.
Given the many ways hackers attempt to exploit passwords to gain access to applications and data, there’s a huge onus on users to manage their many passwords. They can’t do it alone, which is why you must implement a robust password management solution to help them create strong, complex passwords that can’t easily fall prey to common techniques employed by threat actors.
There are many ways artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning already impact cybersecurity. You can expect that trend to continue in 2024 – both as tools for data protection as well as a threat.
Balancing Cybersecurity Innovation Amid Evolving Threat Landscapes
Even as you implement AI and machine learning into your cybersecurity strategy through the adoption of tools like Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR), so are threat actors. They will continue to update and evolve their own methodologies and tools to compromise their targets by applying AI and machine learning to how they use ransomware, malware and deepfakes.
With small and medium-sized businesses just much at risk as their large enterprise counterparts, SMBs must take advantage of AI and machine learning as mush possible. AI-directed attacks are expected to rise in 2024 in the form of deepfake technologies that make phishing and impersonation more effective, as well as evolving ransomware and malware.
Deepfake social engineering techniques
Deepfake technologies that leverage AI are especially worrisome, as they can create fake content that spurs employees and organizations to work against their best interests. Hackers can use deepfakes to create massive changes with serious financial consequences, including altering stock prices.
Deepfake social engineering techniques will only improve with the use of AI, increasing the likelihood of data breaches through unauthorized access to systems and more authentic looking phishing messages that are more personalized, and hence, more effective.
Countering Cyber Threats and Harnessing Innovation in 2024
If hackers are keen on leveraging AI and machine learning to defeat your cybersecurity, you must be ready to combat them in equal measure – just as AI and machine learning will create new challenges in 2024, they can also help you bolster your cybersecurity. While regulations are being developed to foster ethical use of AI, threat actors are not likely to follow them.
AI will also affect your cyber insurance as your providers will use it to assess your resilience against cyberattacks and adjust your premium payments accordingly. AI presents an opportunity for you to improve your cybersecurity to keep those insurance costs under control.
Conclusion
There’s a lot of doom being predicted around the growing use of AI and machine learning. And while it does pose a risk to your organization and its sensitive data, you can use it to bolster your cybersecurity even as threat actors leverage AI to up the ante. A managed service provider with a focus on security can help you use AI and machine learning to protect your organization as we head into 2024.
