10 Emerging Cybersecurity Threats And Hacker Tactics In 2023

Emerging Threats

Perhaps it goes without saying, but in 2023, there’s no shortage of alarming trends in the area of cyberthreats. The MOVEit attacks have underscored the shift by some attackers aware from encryption-based ransomware, in favor of data theft and extortion-only. Many attackers are relying less and less on malware and more on exploiting tools such as remote monitoring and management (RMM), which are less likely to be caught by endpoint security products. Identity-based attacks using compromised credentials are continuing to surge for similar reasons, as a way to get around endpoint detection and response (EDR). Phishing and social engineering remain massive threats to organizations across the board.

[Related: The 10 Biggest Data Breaches of 2023 (So Far)]

But threats and hacker tactics also continue to evolve in 2023.“We’re seeing diversification relative to the type of attacks,” SonicWall CEO Bob VanKirk told CRN in a previous interview. Based on a number of factors, “threat actors are continuing to pivot,” he said.

In terms of emerging threats in 2023, attacks leveraging generative AI has gotten a lot of the attention (and yes, GenAI factors into the list that follows). But there’s been a lot more going on when it comes to the appearance of new hacker tactics this year. Security researchers have identified numerous emerging threat trends and new tactics across phishing and social engineering, data theft and extortion, ransomware and software supply chain attacks.

As part of CRN’s Cybersecurity Week 2023, we’ve compiled a sampling of the new threats and hacker tactics that have emerged over the past year. We’ve compiled the details from CRN interviews and posts by researchers and incident responders from Huntress, CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Mandiant, Microsoft, GuidePoint Security and Cisco Talos, among others.

What follows are 10 emerging cybersecurity threats and new hacker tactics to know about in 2023.