Cyber Security Essentials | Operational resilience

November 25, 2022

Huntsman Security has published its cyber security predictions for 2023, including the importance of cyber security posture management, systematic risk management, and how ongoing changes will continue to be driven by the insurance industry.

In addition, we outline why cyber security guidelines will expand across more borders, and why the industry needs to move from eminence to evidence-based decision making.

Cyber security posture management and systematic risk management rise to greater prominence

Although the rise in the number of ransomware attacks has flattened in the past year, organisations still need to be aware of areas of potential attack risk (attack surfaces) and must be able to demonstrate control of them. Organisations should focus on either:

  • Cyber Security Posture Management: The measure of the state of cyber resilience or overall cyber security readiness. The more effective the management of security controls, the better the cyber posture; or the more targeted
  • Attack Surface Management (ASM): Provides accurate visibility of the “attack surface” – the IT infrastructure assets and the relative risks resulting from vulnerabilities and misconfigurations – to give an improved view into an organisation’s risk exposure to better manage existing controls and mitigate potential attacks.

As organisations pursue continued digital transformation for greater efficiency, and adversaries continue to seek to profit from emerging security weaknesses, we predict 2023 will see the rapid growth of these solutions as stakeholders seek to quickly and more accurately prioritise to their changing cyber security circumstance.

Cyber insurance driving security control improvements

Security controls will be key to insurers better supporting their customers and more accurately pricing cyber risk. Australia, however, recently saw three major ransomware attacks, resulting in the theft of nearly 20 million consumer records, confirming that ransomware still poses a significant risk. Meanwhile in the UK, the ICO is continuing its enforcement activities, recently fining a significant services provider for a data breach.

In 2023 we expect insurers will demand increased controls, alongside rising regulatory requirements for cyber risk. The systematic and quantitative measurement of cyber risk will increase to inform and improve risk management and cyber security oversight.

Convergence of cyber corporate governance rules

Corporate governance rules have always varied across jurisdictions but are likely to converge as governments and organisations recognise they face similar if not the very same threats. Organisations everywhere will need to comply with these increasingly common cyber controls to meet multi-national regulations. The regulatory approaches between Australia and the UK, for example, appear quite different. Australia is tightening its regulations around cyber security obligations, whilst the UK is using advisories as part of a more laissez-faire approach. Recent actions by regulators in both jurisdictions, however, confirm alignment in their thinking.

In 2023, cyber governance is likely to progress towards more formalised processes and frameworks. Whether driven by the regulatory “stick”, the “carrot” or the more likely combination of both – what companies do, and the cyber security decisions they make, will be the subject of increasing accountability and scrutiny.

Shifting from eminence to evidence-based decision making

Decisions within the cyber security industry are often based on the reputation and the experience of experts – an eminence-based approach. With growing cyber resourcing issues and technology improvements, real-time evidence, based on new risk frameworks and measurement methodologies, is becoming critical to better inform security decisions.

2023 will see an industry shift to evidence-based decision making – aided by the availability of technologies to enable the quantitative measurement and systematic interpretation of risk data. This will, in time, help offset the ongoing skills shortage of experienced cyber security professionals, while still allowing effective cyber security decisions to be made by organisations using high-speed quantitative risk management and reporting technologies.

Huntsman Security has published a full whitepaper that includes further detail on the four predictions above, as well as other predictions. The paper can be downloaded here: Cyber Security Predictions 2023.

Cyber Security Predictions 2023

BLOG POSTS

Related Cybersecurity Content

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE CYBER SECURITY INSIGHTS

Read by directors, executives, and security professionals globally, operating in the most complex of security environments.