Looking backward, looking ahead: How last year’s tech trends predict the future

When it comes to the future, look to the past.

That’s the key to cloud computing company Akamai’s Advisory CISO Steve Winterfeld’s predictions for what we’ll see in 2024—2023’s cybersecurity tech trends. Those trends, and Akamai’s analysis of them, were detailed in the company’s A Year in Review: A Look at 2023’s Cyber Trends and What’s to Come report.

Look back. Winterfeld told us that he saw 2023 as a “fairly normal year” in which threats and technological change, though rapid in some areas, was “linear in nature” and not an unexpected explosion in new technology.

That said, the transformation of the industry along established lines is happening so quickly that it’s going to have ripple effects. API integration is top of mind, Winterfeld said, and though the data-sharing functionality and multiple uses of the software allows for a smoother workflow, it also raises challenges.

“As we move into a different infrastructure, or building methodology, in our transition from a legacy architecture to a new architecture,” Winterfeld said, “all that transformation comes with security, performance, and quality catching up.”

One 2023 data point that Winterfeld found almost unfair was a rise in ransomware attackers aimed at recent victims.

“The one that I just didn’t think was very sporting was to see that if you’re attacked by a ransomware attack, you are six times more likely to be attacked again within three months,” Winterfeld said. “And so while you’re in crisis, recovery and remediation, you’re being attacked a second time.”

Futurecast. Looking ahead to 2024, Winterfeld told IT BRew about three predicted 2024 trends worth paying attention to: AI and the talent crisis, vendor consolidation, and the rise of DDoS and API attacks.

AI and the talent crisis

Winterfeld believes that while the growth in AI and machine learning technology should be expected to continue throughout 2024, it won’t be enough to manage the ongoing skills and jobs gap presented by the tech staffing shortages that IT Brew has reported on throughout the year.“We’re in the first generation of these large language models, and some of the private ones are already becoming more useful,” Winterfeld said. “But it’s going to be a long road.”

Vendor consolidation

More changes in IT systems lead to more complexity—which can lead to more security flaws. Companies outsourcing IT work to third party vendors, a common practice, means more possible chances for infiltration. Winterfeld predicts that vendor consolidation will help solve the problem; having less cooks in the kitchen, as it were.“Then I’m spending less time on integration, less time on vendor management, more time on actual security,” Winterfeld said.

DDos and API attacks

Everyone talks about ransomware attacks increasing, and for good reason—it was the main attack vector in 2023 and is expected to continue to dominate the threat landscape in 2024 as well. Winterfeld believes that denial of service and API attacks will be a part of the ongoing ransomware threat, as well as being utilized by nation states and political actors. “Security leaders need to take a hard look at what are their bandwidth capabilities,” Winterfeld said. “If you expected to defend against X this year, you need to consider Y next year, is that a 10% growth? Probably about right, depending on your industry…I expect to see that being used both politically and for cybercrime.”