What do you do if you want to stay ahead of future cybersecurity threats?

The easiest way to do this is with the Schrödinger Threat Tree. You list all the threats for next year. I built mine into a DeLorean to make it more awesome. Then rev up to 88mph and list all the threats for the following year. Then repeat. It's recommended you do this for 7 years and 48 days into the future. This is the only easy way to protect yourself against future threats. The other ways are much harder and require applying OSSTMM stuff like hardening systems, asset owner segmentation, op controls for defense in width, bastion hosts for services, jump points for remote sec, and service windows for remote workers. But that's just a lot of work and although it prepares you for future threats you don't get a DeLorean.

Pre-GenAI, it was near-impossible to stay 100% up to date on emerging cybersecurity threats because it relied on manual human effort. GenAI tooling is a gamechanger - leverage it to help automate certain elements of threat intelligence; from intelligence gathering to analysis. It can help you decipher whether alerts are relevant to your own estate, and reduce the noise of false positives.

To stay ahead of future cybersecurity threats, I would prioritize establishing a comprehensive detection process. This ensures early identification of deviations, regardless of their source, enabling timely initiation of incident response. Additionally, I'd develop and rigorously test a robust business continuity and disaster recovery plan. This ensures that services can be quickly restored and maintained within the predefined recovery time objectives, minimizing operational disruptions and safeguarding critical assets.

To stay a head of emerging cybersecurity threats I like to review RSS feeds, read industry publications, Discord channels, follow industry peers on social media and attend conferences. There is wealth of information to be gained from these sources.

In the fast-evolving fields of cybersecurity and InfoSec, staying ahead means embracing AI. AI excels in sifting through massive data to identify emerging threats, not replacing experts but empowering those who adapt. Continuous learning and leveraging AI tools are essential, as cyber adversaries constantly innovate. Engage with the community for shared insights and apply AI to enhance threat detection, response, and best practices implementation. Remember, progress waits for no one, and in cybersecurity, adapting to AI isn't just smart—it's necessary to stay a step ahead of the bad guys.

Conducting continuous risk analysis is key to identify what is actually exposed and at risk in your environment. You should have your critical assets clearly defined and with that in mind, you need to leverage an attacker’s perspective, combining all exposures in a single graphical view showing the true context of risk and whether these critical assets can be reached within your environment and likelihood of them actually being compromised. This will give you a common understanding of your threats and how to prioritize your remediation efforts, fixing issues in the most productive and effective way to reduce risk. This approach helps your teams to communicate effectively, reduce friction and be aligned in reaching the same goals.

Conducting thorough risk analysis is essential for identifying potential vulnerabilities and mitigating cybersecurity threats effectively. This involves assessing the organization's assets, systems, and networks to understand their value, sensitivity, and potential impact if compromised. Utilizing risk assessment frameworks such as NIST Cybersecurity Framework or ISO 27001 can provide structured approaches to evaluate risks comprehensively. Regularly updating risk assessments to account for evolving threats and changes in the organizational environment is crucial. Prioritizing risks based on their likelihood & potential impact enables allocating resources & implementing appropriate security controls to minimize vulnerabilities effectively.

Conducting regular risk assessments is essential for spotting potential vulnerabilities in your systems. This involves evaluating your IT infrastructure to pinpoint areas at high risk of cyberattacks. Once vulnerabilities are identified, they can be prioritized for mitigation. Implementing threat intelligence tools also plays a key role, providing insights into emerging threats and enabling proactive defense measures. Risk analysis should be continuous, adapting to new threats as they arise to ensure your defenses remain robust.

Working with environmental risk is essential nowadays. We understand that we must model our risks to the environment in which we live, and this will generate very interesting results in the medium and long term, through correct prioritization of threats, demand management, control and mitigation of incidents, among many other points.

One of the most talked about topics currently in the security area is risk. We must manage the risk of our organization and, through this management, create priorities in the actions of technical and managerial areas. This will lead us to protect most of the organization's sensitive assets, generating security and availability.

Human error remains one of the most significant contributors to cybersecurity breaches. Providing comprehensive security training to employees helps in cultivating a security-conscious culture within the organization. Training programs should cover various topics such as phishing awareness, password hygiene, social engineering tactics, and safe internet usage practices. Interactive and scenario-based training modules can effectively simulate real-world cybersecurity threats, enhancing employees' ability to recognize and respond to potential risks. Regularly reinforcing training through simulated phishing exercises and ongoing education ensures that employees remain vigilant and up-to-date with evolving threats.

To stay ahead of future cybersecurity threats, organizations must prioritize employee education and the adoption of advanced technological defenses. Training should cover cyber hygiene basics, like recognizing phishing attempts and creating secure passwords. Implementing robust security measures, such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems, alongside regular security assessments, is essential. Establishing a comprehensive incident response plan is also crucial. Combining informed employee practices with state-of-the-art security technologies and clear response strategies enables a proactive stance against evolving threats, safeguarding critical assets.

A company where all employees work towards safety is essential for the entire ecosystem to be safe. This is because non-security employees will have a clinical eye to monitor threats and prevent executions, and this creates a much safer system to work in.

I say continuous training. CyberSecurity is a constantly evolving field. Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning by following industry publications and Security blogs to stay updated on the latest threats and attending conferences and workshops to learn about emerging trends and defensive strategies. Also pursuing industry certifications like CISSP or CISM to validate your knowledge and stay competitive.

O investimento em soluções que antes eram consideradas avançadas hoje se torna soluções básicas, como: NGFW, NDR, Gestão de Vulnerabilidades e um bom XDR. Basicamente, para segurança de rede leste/oeste e norte/sul, o NGFW com Sandbox para Zero Days dá conta do recado. O NDR com SOAR, IA e ML é vital para resposta rápida baseada em comportamento. A Gestão de Vulnerabilidades é importante para diminuir a exposição cibernética e, por fim, o XDR protege endpoints e servidores críticos contra malwares, zero days e realiza correlação de incidentes para melhorar a detecção.

Advanced security solutions are essential to guarantee security policies and procedures, technology that includes the necessary mitigations for the world's new threats. This happens through behavioral analysis, insertion of security controls, such as MFA, encryption, detection and response and many other possibilities that the security market offers to protect us.

Having extremely advanced cutting-edge solutions is very important, however, having highly trained professionals in these solutions is equally important.

Responding to security incidents ends up not being the best way to stay ahead of threats, but rather generating an efficient plan to minimize the impacts of a threat. In this context, we need to be effective in solving security problems, however, having controls and monitoring to prevent cyber attacks is the best way to stay ahead of future security threats.

If the goal is to, "stay ahead of future cybersecurity threats" and it probably should be, then the biggest issue in many organizations is appropriate staffing levels. The available capacity of many security teams is consumed by the steady stream of incidents, which draw team members away from the vital work required for analysis, planning ,and implementing controls required to prevent the looming threats. If this is the case in your organization, and adding staff isn't an option, then try to bootstrap your way out of the problem by racking the incident types in order, most labor intensive, first. Then, start at the top of the list and work on things that will reduce the number of incidents, one class at a time.

The best way to support a process of continuous improvement in enterprise security with the goal of staying ahead of emerging cybersecurity threats is to: (1) automate everything using the principals, practices, and tools of DevOps / SecDevOps / security as code; and (2) understand, document, and work to reduce your attack surface. If you haven't documented your attack surface, it's larger than you think it is, it's too large, and AI-amplified threats are coming for it, sooner than you think.

Complacency kills. Cybersecurity is an area that requires your organization's people, processes, and technology to continually improve. It all starts by making the commitment to keep getting better. Stay up to date with what's going on in the field and what new threats and vulnerabilities are emerging. Conduct regular vulnerability assessments and pentests to evaluate your security posture. Wherever necessary, implement frameworks such as NIST CSF 2.0 to standardize practices and measure effectiveness. Keep investing in your talent. While it's true that humans are the weakest link in your cybersecurity defenses, your people are your biggest asset. Treat them as such. Stay informed, stay prepared, and keep evolving.

Another area to consider is how Generative Artificial Intelligence will speed up and change the landscape. Also, focusing on procedures is paramount, as tactics and techniques are often not detailed enough.

Everyone answering here is saying the best way to predict the weather is to be informed about what others see when they look out the window. It makes no sense. To protect yourself against future threats you need to keep up with scientific and technological breakthroughs and emerging tech. What science is being taught in various countries and how is it applied in academic R&D? Even then, you can still only guess the possibilities but at least you're not just trying to catch up, or worse, defending against fictional stories.

Monitor threat feeds, security blogs, and industry reports to anticipate and prepare for upcoming threats. Invest in threat intelligence solutions to gather real-time information about potential cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities.

A recently published study has shown that state of the art transformer based large language models (March 2024) can be more persuasive than humans. This more or less confirms the suspicion that this type of AI system could be used to automate and scale phishing, and even spear phishing attacks. The way to stay ahead of this looming threat is to reduce the vulnerable attack surface — in this case, password based (shared secret) authentication systems. Passwords should be replaced as soon as possible with public/private key based challenge systems. No more shared secrets! Passkeys for the win! Get started on this now. You won't regret it.

Threat actors' sophisticated arsenals and advanced tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) have outpaced the reactive security approach. Threat intelligence is the most important feeding pool of proactive cybersecurity. From strategic decisions to current technical operations, enrich your processes with verified and actionable real-time intelligence filtered from the open and dark web.