Trend Micro‘s annual free-for-all cybersecurity conference, DECODE 2023: Resilience Rising, made a victorious return. The event held recently at the EDSA Shangri-la Hotel, drew over 700 attendees from various organizations and colleges around the metro.
Participants were able to engage with prominent cybersecurity experts on the themes of threats, data & privacy, skills & procedures, and emerging technologies over numerous track presentations, panel discussions, and hands-on activities.
Five key takeaways on cybersecurity as shared by experts:
1. Hackers are progressively getting more creative
Hackers are constantly improving their strategies in response to the fast invention and growth of technology. A virtual kidnapping scam is one example, in which criminals take advantage of the easy access to voice, video, and pictures made available on social media.
These are intentionally scheduled for when the children are at daycare or school, and parents receive video calls featuring their child’s face and voice pleading with them to pay the ransom. If they try to phone them, the call will be sent right to the criminals who are using AI-powered voice cloning techniques to appear as their stolen child.
To prevent such innovative crimes, cybersecurity organizations and experts are also trying to upgrade their systems and upskill their workers to increase their resiliency. During the DECODE panel discussion, Trend Micro’s Jay Yaneza, Director of Managed Detection and Response, emphasized how enterprises and organizations are growing in their approach to cybersecurity.
Businesses and cybersecurity organizations will be better equipped to stand their ground if they acknowledge the risks and continually adjust to the threat landscape, regardless of how clever the threat actors’ strategy is.
2. Artificial intelligence can be our friend or foe
Many people are split over whether artificial intelligence (AI) advances society. AI may undoubtedly be a useful tool depending on how you use it, but it can also be useful for cybercriminals. In his talk, Trend Micro’s Director of Forward-Looking Threat Research, Robert McArdle, notes how there are already multiple forums among criminals dedicated to studying AI.
Lower-level threat actors may readily advance to mid-level threat actors, and so on until elite-level criminals become finely-tuned criminal robots. So, while cybercriminals—from novice to skilled hackers—are already experimenting with AI’s capabilities for their benefit, cybersecurity organizations and experts are doing the same to guarantee that AI-assisted risks are recognized early and dealt with swiftly.
3. Our convenience is their convenience
While biometrics was once thought to be a safe and creative alternative to passwords, the internet has now become a platform for many people to regularly expose their voices, faces, and fingerprints. While biometrics and face recognition have been shown to help organizations streamline their procedures, they also pose several security threats to individuals.
Many threat actors may readily access the personal and private data of everyday customers using stolen biometric data, disclosing sensitive information such as bank accounts, addresses, and more. In an age where your data defines who you are, it is critical to be discerning about which apps and services have credible and trustworthy security, and whether lending images of your face or even hands is worth the risk of a criminal stealing your fingerprints… or even your identity entirely.
4. Schedule that update for tonight —or ASAP
When Good Intentions Fall Short: Top 5 Cyber Resilience Failures, a case study given at the track session, highlighted how a company had a ransomware assault that remained unnoticed for 21 days due to an obsolete security system. Developers regularly update the majority of the software we use in our daily lives, from the system software on our phones and computers to the software on our printers and graphics/multimedia programs.
These updates aren’t just for show; they help you stay up with threat actors and strengthen your defenses against assaults. This enhanced security and safety is pointless, however, if consumers do not regularly update their devices and software. Yaneza said, “The attacks that we’re seeing are a little bit faster nowadays… we used to be counting days, but now we’re counting hours.”. So, stop putting it off and schedule it as soon as feasible!
5. While we can’t predict the future, we can prepare for it
In recent years, cybersecurity has advanced significantly. McArdle’s keynote, Cybersecurity Threats in 2023, examined the major cybersecurity trends from 2016 to the present to better set the stage for what we might anticipate in the next years. Cyber dangers have progressed from basic email scams designed to get bank credentials and passwords to data breaches impacting the world’s largest corporations and institutions.
These organized and complex crimes that formerly drew weeks of media attention have now become so common that they occur virtually regularly. The good news is that, because most criminals focus on quick and easy executions, cybersecurity professionals and security tools may leverage trends and projections from studies such as Trend Micro’s Mid-year Cybersecurity Threat Report to stay two steps ahead of the game.
The outstanding number of attendees at DECODE 2023 demonstrates how eager local cybersecurity experts are to strengthen their businesses’ resilience against the threats and developments highlighted above. With Trend Micro’s goal of making cybersecurity education more accessible and closing the cybersecurity skills gap in the Philippines, initiatives like DECODE provide participants with new perspectives and knowledge that they can share with their networks and organizations, and ultimately use to better protect themselves from the ever-changing threat landscape.
Registered users of decodeph.com may access the various track sessions and discussions held during DECODE 2023: Resilience Rising on the website. Do you want to attend DECODE 2024? Stay tuned to DECODE PH’s official website and social media for additional registration news and updates.
