The cybersecurity landscape of 2024 will be characterized by unprecedented challenges, significant breaches, and evolving regulatory requirements that will fundamentally reshape how organizations approach data protection.
From record-breaking incidents to stringent new legislation, this year has provided important insights into cybersecurity. This highlighted a critical priority for strengthening organizational defenses in an increasingly complex digital ecosystem. Increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and digital transformation initiatives are expanding the attack surface, creating unprecedented challenges for organizations across all sectors.
Record-breaking violations define the year.
2024 has seen several disruptive cybersecurity incidents highlighting increasingly sophisticated threats.
- The year began with the ongoing impact of the MOVEit supply chain breach, which affected over 2,600 organizations and exposed 77 million records. The incident highlighted the cascading impact of supply chain vulnerabilities in an interconnected digital world and sparked renewed interest in third-party risk management across industries.
- The national public data breach was particularly severe, compromising 2.9 billion records and affecting 1.3 million individuals. The unprecedented scale of this breach shocked the cybersecurity community and caused many organizations to reevaluate their data protection strategies.
- The healthcare sector faced a major crisis with the Change Healthcare breach, which affected 110 million Americans and highlighted the importance of strong data protection measures when handling sensitive medical information. The breach exposed vulnerabilities in the healthcare system and disrupted patient care and medical billing processes across the country.
- AT&T experienced a cyber incident that exposed 110 million customer records, resulting in financial losses of approximately $19.69 billion. These incidents demonstrated the serious consequences of inadequate cybersecurity practices and the long-term impact on customer trust and corporate financial health. These breaches led to widespread regulatory scrutiny and calls for improved communications sector security standards.
Financial losses from data breaches continue to increase dramatically, with the global average cost reaching $4.88 million, a 10% increase from 2023. Additionally, 60% of organizations report spending more than $2 million annually on data breach litigation costs alone.
These increased costs can be attributed to a variety of factors, including the increased sophistication of cyber threats, a larger attack surface due to remote work practices, and increased regulatory consequences. Organizations also face significant indirect costs, including damaged reputations, lost business opportunities, and diminished customer trust.
See also: US sanctions Chinese cybersecurity firm over 2020 ransomware attacks
Tool sprawl and third-party risk become critical issues
It also revealed serious vulnerabilities arising from complex technology environments and third-party relationships.
Organizations using seven or more communication tools experienced 3.55 times more breaches than average, highlighting the dangers of tool proliferation. While enabling greater collaboration and productivity, the proliferation of communication platforms has created new vulnerabilities that cybersecurity experts are struggling to address. Maintaining consistent security controls across multiple platforms has emerged as a critical priority for security teams.
As organizations become increasingly dependent on external partners, their risk environment has become more complex. 66% of companies were exchanging sensitive content with more than 1,000 third parties. This dependency has led to a 68% increase in software supply chain attacks targeting file transfer systems.
The challenge of tracking and controlling external content sharing has highlighted the need for a comprehensive data protection strategy that extends beyond organizational boundaries. In response to these challenges, many organizations have implemented new vendor risk management programs and strengthened third-party security assessment processes.
Regulatory environment becomes more complex
2024 will see significant regulatory developments transforming the data privacy landscape.
Implementing the NIS 2 Directive will introduce personal liability for cybersecurity compliance violations in the European Union, raising the stakes for executives and boards. This shift toward individual responsibility has highlighted the need for a top-down effort on data protection and the need to integrate cybersecurity considerations into overall business strategies. Organizations have worked to update their governance structures and compliance frameworks to address these new requirements.
In the United States, several states have passed comprehensive privacy laws, creating complex requirements for organizations to navigate. This regulatory expansion has had significant financial consequences, with GDPR and HIPAA enforcement resulting in fines totaling $5.6 billion and $5.3 billion, respectively.
The complex regulatory environment has particularly impacted North American organizations, with 63% citing state privacy laws as their biggest concern, highlighting the need for harmonized and consistent data protection regulations. Many organizations have invested heavily in improving their compliance management systems and privacy programs to address these evolving requirements.
See also: Patch Tuesday: Microsoft patches one of its actively exploited vulnerabilities.
Emerging threats and industry challenges
The emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning has created new security challenges, with 50% of North American organizations identifying AI/GenAI data exposure as a major concern. While offering tremendous innovation potential, these new technologies require organizations to develop new strategies to manage their unique security challenges. The rapid adoption of AI tools has raised concerns about data privacy, model security, and the potential for AI-based cyberattacks.
Cloud security has emerged as another critical challenge, with breaches in cloud environments increasing 75% year-on-year and 33% of breaches related to misconfiguration. As organizations look for more secure cloud deployment options, the case for single-tenant and multi-tenant cloud hosting has gained significant attention. The security team focused on implementing enhanced cloud security posture management tools and improving the cloud security architecture.
The threat landscape has evolved significantly, with non-malware attacks accounting for 75% of detected incidents and ransomware payouts increasing 500% to an average of $2 million. Using AI-assisted algorithms, we obtained scores for various industry sectors from 2018 to 2024, with Hospitality, Retail and Manufacturing receiving the highest risk scores in the first half of 2024. The education and research sector experienced the highest weekly attacks with 3,086. 37% increase compared to the previous year. This highlighted the need for enhanced security measures in educational institutions.
The federal government grapples with significant third-party risk, with 28% of agencies exchanging data with more than 5,000 parties. Meanwhile, the financial services sector consistently scores higher than all industries in risk assessments. These sector-specific challenges have led to the development of targeted security frameworks and industry-specific best practices.
See also: Best CSPM Tools of 2024: Comparing the Best Cloud Security Solutions
Looking Ahead: Building Cyber ​​Resilience
As organizations look to strengthen their cybersecurity posture, several key priorities have emerged. Adopting a zero trust approach has become critical, but 45% of organizations still struggle to achieve zero trust for content security. A comprehensive data protection strategy that includes end-to-end encryption, data loss prevention tools, and strong access management practices has become critical.
Lessons from 2024 highlight the need for a proactive, adaptive and comprehensive approach to data protection and risk management. We looked at this in detail in the ‘2025 Personal Content Exposure Risk Management Forecast Report’. To succeed in an evolving threat environment, organizations must embrace continuous improvement, invest in robust cybersecurity measures, and foster cross-industry collaboration.
As we enter 2025, protecting sensitive data and maintaining customer trust remains a fundamental responsibility as well as a business imperative in the digital age.
Tim Freestone, Chief Strategy Officer at Kiteworks, is a senior leader with more than 17 years of expertise in marketing leadership, brand strategy, process, and organizational optimization. Since joining Kiteworks in 2021, he has played a pivotal role in shaping the global landscape of content governance, compliance and protection.
