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Cybersecurity Forecast: Key Concerns Predicted by Hackers for 2024

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Every year around December experts at NordVPN try to predict the cybersecurity risks awaiting us in the next year. This year they decided to take a different route and look into the biggest dark web forum to find out what were the most discussed topics and base their predictions on their findings.

“Every year we try to predict sophisticated attacks from experienced hackers, who mostly target businesses or influential people,” says Marijus Briedis, a CTO at NordVPN. “Taking this year’s approach helped us realize that regular internet users, however, are often attacked by amateur hackers who are still developing their craft. They can also cause a lot of harm to their unsuspecting victims and users need to be informed about their plans.”

Below you will find the top five predictions made by cybersecurity experts at NordVPN based on what hackers talk about online.

Leaked n*des will be trending on the dark web
The most commented threads on the forum included those about leaked n*des from OnlyFans, Instagram, and other content-sharing platforms. Threads about leaked n*des received almost 1,850 comments and were among the top 20 most commented threads on the forum.

“This means that next year we will see even more attacks, where pictures of people will be leaked. Another route criminals can take is using AI or deepfake technology to create fake n*des to trick their buyers,” says Marijus Briedis. To avoid having pictures leaked online, Warmenhoven recommends abstaining from sending photos through social media and using encrypted cloud solutions when sharing photos.

AI will be there to help hackers
Hacked ChatGPT accounts and tutorials on using AI for attacks are very popular amongst hackers. This not only means that AI users are on the radar, but hackers are learning how to use AI to increase the capacity of their work and make their job easier, quicker, and more effective.

“The utilisation of AI tools will facilitate the automation of a significant portion of phishing attacks, and it is anticipated that the frequency of such attacks will escalate in the future, posing significant cybersecurity threats,” says Briedis.

He also mentions that users who are unsure they can identify phishing emails can use browser extensions created to serve that purpose.

The number of amateur hackers will be growing
Every tenth post on the forum was about learning how to execute some kind of attack. Among the most commented threads were: “How to dox,” “List of useful resources for pen-testers and hackers”, “How to hack WhatsApp of your friend by sending a single ink,” “How to instantly crack TikTok accounts easily,” “WiFi hacking course,” and others.

This means that hackers are sharing their knowledge and we can expect the number of amateur hackers to rise together with the number of attacks they execute. So users should be even more serious about their cybersecurity education and keep themselves updated about the latest attacks.

Customer data will be selling like hot-cakes
Researchers found that around 55% of discussion threads were around leaked customer data, such as social media credentials, driver licenses, addresses, emails, and other bits of personal information. This means that hackers are still after vulnerable personal data and no user is safe from hacking.

Warmenhoven says that the simple thing users can do to protect their online data is to use MFA (multi-factor authentication) wherever possible.

Biometric authentication won’t be the answer
Many platforms that care about the security of their users now provide the ability to authenticate biometrically. However, the research showed that hackers have already learned how to bypass some of the biometric authentication methods, such as the selfie verification that some crypto platforms use. The thread explaining how to bypass selfie verification collected more than 200 comments.

“Biometric authentication will surely be a part of authentication in the future, but only if it is multi-factor,” says Marijus Briedis. “So we can not only predict that biometric authentication will show to be unreliable, but that more layered ways to protect online accounts will appear.”

One of the latest developments in the sphere has been passkeys technology. A passkey is a pair of related keys: public and private. Public and private keys do not work without one another and therefore are useless to hackers. Moreover, the passkey on your gadget (private key) cannot be accessed without biometric identification (of the device’s owner) or a PIN, which adds extra protection.

Cloud

SentinelOne Simplifies Secure Cloud Migrations on AWS

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SentinelOne today announced its participation in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Workload Migration Program. This initiative supports AWS Partner Network (APN) members with SaaS offerings on AWS to accelerate and streamline workload migrations.

Through the program, SentinelOne will provide AWS customers with accelerated, secure cloud migration support, leveraging modern AI-powered CNAPP capabilities to ensure rapid and protected transitions. With access to AWS funding, technical resources, and go-to-market support, SentinelOne will help organizations reduce migration timelines and costs while maintaining robust security.

SentinelOne’s Singularity Cloud Security delivers real-time visibility and protection throughout the migration journey—whether from on-premises or another cloud—enabling a secure, seamless transition to AWS.

“Through our participation in the AWS ISV Workload Migration Program, SentinelOne is helping customers accelerate secure cloud migrations with end-to-end protection and visibility,” said Ric Smith, President of Product, Technology, and Operations at SentinelOne. “Whether moving from on-prem or another cloud to AWS, organizations can count on us to deliver the security they need throughout their journey—realizing the performance, speed, agility, and cost benefits of the cloud.”

Singularity Cloud Security combines agentless and agent-based protection for deep visibility, continuous posture management, and real-time threat detection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. By collaborating with AWS and ecosystem partners, SentinelOne ensures seamless integration into migration projects, helping customers move faster, reduce risk, and scale confidently in the cloud.

Availability: SentinelOne’s solutions are available globally.

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Cyber Security

Beyond Blocklists: How Behavioural Intent Analysis Can Safeguard Middle East Businesses from Rising AI-Driven Bot Threats

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The Middle East is facing an unprecedented surge in AI-driven bot attacks, with malicious automation now outpacing traditional defenses. Mohammad Ismail, Vice President for EMEA at Cequence Security, warns that legacy tools like IP blocklists and rate limiting are no match for today’s sophisticated threats (more…)

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Cyber Security

Sophos Boosts Firewall with New Protection and Incident Response Features

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Sophos has announced a significant update to its Sophos Firewall software, introducing enhanced protection and incident response capabilities. This update notably includes Sophos NDR Essential, a new feature now available free of charge to all customers holding an XStream Protection license for Sophos Firewall.

This integration empowers Sophos Firewall with two dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) engines specifically designed to detect both malware communications and those utilizing algorithmically generated domain names. This advanced functionality, derived from the Sophos Network Detection and Response (NDR) probe, aims to identify sophisticated malware communications even if they are previously unknown or not yet indexed. It serves as a powerful complement to the Active Threat Response capabilities already embedded within Sophos firewalls.

Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos

Addressing the technical demands of such advanced detection, Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos, explained the strategic approach, “NDR traffic analysis requires substantial processing power. That’s why we’ve adopted a new approach by deploying an NDR solution in Sophos Cloud to offload the heaviest tasks from the firewall.” This cloud-centric design ensures optimal performance without burdening the firewall’s on-device resources.

Beyond network detection, the update also brings significant improvements to connectivity and user authentication. Sophos Connect now integrates EntraID for Single Sign-On (SSO). This new feature for the VPN client, bundled with Sophos Firewall, is set to enhance both the security and user experience for SSL and IPsec VPN connections. The integration with EntraID (Azure AD) enables users to authenticate and leverage multi-factor authentication for both Sophos Connect and access to the user portal hosted by the firewall, streamlining secure access.

Further VPN-related enhancements include:

  • Improved user interface and usability: Connection types have been renamed for greater clarity, with “site-to-site” now referred to as “policy-based” and tunnel interfaces as “route-based,” making configurations more intuitive.
  • Dynamic validation of the IP address pool: For VPN connections (SSL VPN, IPsec, L2TP, and PPTP), the system now dynamically validates the allocated IP address pool, helping to better resolve potential IP address conflicts.
  • Strict profile enforcement: IPsec profiles now exclude default values to ensure algorithm synchronization, effectively eliminating potential fragmentation of session negotiation packets that could otherwise prevent site-to-site VPN tunnels from being established.
  • Route-based VPN and SD-RED scalability: The system has been optimized to support up to 3,000 simultaneously established tunnels. Specifically, Sophos Firewall solutions can now manage up to 1,000 SD-RED site-to-site tunnels and connect up to 650 concurrent SD-RED devices.

Additional management improvements enhance administrative flexibility and search capabilities:

  • More flexible DHCP Prefix Delegation (IPv6 DHCP-PD): The system now supports a broader range of prefixes, from /48 to /64, improving compatibility with various internet service providers.
  • Router Advertisement (RA) and DHCPv6 server: These features are now enabled by default, simplifying IPv6 network setup.
  • Resizable table columns: The web admin interface continues its adaptation for ultra-wide screens, with many configuration pages now allowing users to resize columns as needed for improved usability.
  • Enhanced object search functionality: The search field within the SD-WAN routing configuration screen now supports more granular criteria, including route name, ID, objects, and object values like IP addresses and domains. Similarly, local ACL rules now also support object name and value searches, extending to content-based searches for more precise results.
  • Default configuration changes: To streamline initial setups, default firewall rules and rule groups previously created during new firewall deployments have been removed. The initial configuration now only includes the default network rule and MTA rules. Furthermore, the default firewall rule group and the default gateway probe for custom gateways are now set to “None” by default.

Sophos continues its commitment to cybersecurity through a “Secure by Design” approach, enhancing the intrinsic security of its firewalls. This methodology involves the containerization of specific features and rigorous integrity checks on critical operating system files using mathematical checksums. Any detected checksum mismatch triggers a potential compromise alert, enabling monitoring teams to proactively identify possible security incidents affecting the firewall OS integrity. This proactive detection allows incident response and development teams to react swiftly to critical security events.

This update is now available for manual download and deployment by customers with any Sophos Firewall equipped with a valid license.

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