Threat Landscape

This report looks into the notable email threats of 2023, including the 45,261,542 high-risk email threats we detected and blocked using the Trend Micro™ Cloud App Security solution, also referred to as Trend Vision One™ — Email and Collaboration Protection solution, which is part of the Trend Vision One Email and Collaboration Security suite.

2024 is poised to be a hotbed for new challenges in cybersecurity as the economic and political terrains continue to undergo digitization and enterprises increasingly leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), the cloud, and Web3 technologies. While these innovations are expected to lend a hand to organizations, they also provide opportunities for cybercriminals by promising big returns, more streamlined operations on wider impact zones, and more targeted victims.

We discuss proof-of-concept rootkits and malware used by cybercriminals in conjunction with Berkeley Packet Filtering (BPF), a piece of technology that allows programs to execute code in the operating systems of popular cloud-computing platforms. We also show how to detect such threats.

In this first installment in our series on the challenges of the cybersecurity industry, we explore the underlying causes of the workforce gaps that have long plagued SOC teams.

Enterprises and organizations are facing a period of transition and uncertainty – malicious actors will hunker down and reuse tried-and-tested tools and techniques.

In 2022, decision-makers will have to contend with threats old and new bearing down on the increasingly interconnected and perimeterless environments that define the postpandemic workplace.

The seismic events of 2020 have created long-lasting changes in work environments across the globe, and opened up new attack avenues for cybercriminals. Cybersecurity will help enterprises and ordinary users adapt safely to these new conditions.

Our continuous surveillance and research of the threat landscape in 2023 showed patterns suggesting that as cybercriminals take advantage of the expanding attack surface, they are also learning to prioritize substance over size.

Cybersecurity in 2020 will be viewed through many lenses — from differing attacker motivations and cybercriminal arsenal to technological developments and global threat intelligence — only so defenders can keep up with the broad range of threats.