Whatever business you’re in and wherever you’re located, you are now competing with another huge global industry for your digital property: cybercrime. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the worldwide damages from cybercrime are projected to hit $10.5T in 2025. Any industry of that size is bound to attract a large number of very motivated organizations.

The fact that cybersecurity threats are now a highly organized and systematic business may be the biggest change of the last few years. While bad actors and petty gangs of fraudsters and scammers are still out there, they lack the sophistication and resources that make up the bulk of today’s cybercriminal underworld.

The current threat landscape is comprised of a dark web arms market of specialists, working alongside or even on behalf of rogue nation states. With some countries tacitly permitting criminal operations on their territory – when they’re not actively directing such activities – there is limited hope that legal agencies can adequately suppress it.

For this reason, it’s incumbent on every company to look after their own operations and infrastructure to keep their business safe. Here are some of the biggest challenges to guard against this year:

Business Email Compromise

By now, most computer users are familiar with phishing scams and generally know what to watch out for. Between this heightened awareness and the relatively tiny takes from individual frauds, career cybercriminals have shifted their focus to going after businesses. Business Email Compromise (BEC) has become such a large category that the FBI is now paying specific attention to it.

BEC uses many of the same techniques as phishing, but preys on the fact that email is a critical communication channel for conducting business, so people are differently motivated to click on malicious links. Such messages also tend to be more easily disguised in the normal flow of communications.

The biggest difference with this tactic is that criminals are often not trying to steal money directly. Instead, a click will download malware that can compromise the company’s entire network in preparation for more lucrative exploitation like a ransomware attack. Because the exploit doesn’t involve additional, suspicious steps (like entering username or passwords), the trick is less likely to be spotted.

Fortunately, like spam and phishing activities, a reasonable measure of employee training and IT vigilance can thwart such attacks. Just be sure that employees have the issue top of mind as they engage with their inbox.

Ransomware Gangs

As an adjunct to the BEC scams mentioned above, compromised systems are vulnerable to one of the fastest-growing categories of cybercrime: ransomware. This utilizes malicious code secretly installed in a targeted system to deny access to the legitimate owner’s files unless and until they pay a ransom.

The code may be part of a package that both penetrates the network security and attacks the files, or it may be injected into a system that has already been compromised. The perpetrators usually steal copies of all the files for further exploitation before locking the owners out.

These gangs tend to be part of the wider criminal underworld, with divisions of “labor” between the coders who create the malware, the bad actors who gain access to the networks, and the perpetrators who actually conduct the ransom. The cryptocurrency industry is also passively complicit as that is primarily how ransoms are paid.

With so many antagonists in the mix, ransomware is a particularly malignant issue. The United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has some guidance, but businesses are well advised to be proactive in securing their systems and educating their employees about the threat. This problem only looks to get worse for the foreseeable future.

State-Sponsored Attacks

State-sponsored hackers used to just be a concern for government agencies like Defense and the CIA. But some countries have evolved into gangster states that derive at least some of their national income from criminal activity. North Korea is a prime example. Some other nations turn a blind eye on such activities and take a cut of the proceeds in exchange.

These attacks may look like the frauds and scams mentioned above, but they are so well resourced and shielded from international law enforcement, they represent a unique threat. In many cases, the financial gains are just a bonus on top of the geopolitical intrusion and disruption these state actors want to see accomplished.

This makes them particularly malicious. While hostile governments may use state resources to try to penetrate U.S. government departments in pursuit of secrets, the “privateers” they indulge are likelier to be more indiscriminate. Vandalism of infrastructure and social cohesion is one of their objectives alongside extortion and theft. As international tensions rise, so will the rate of these threats.

As Dwayne Smith, Chief Information Security Officer of Vensure Employer Solutions, warns, “Given the escalation in geo-political tensions, kinetic conflicts, and the strained international economic climate, an increase in digital threats and increased risk is inevitable. It is important for companies to be proactive to ensure that they will not be accidentally caught in the digital cyber crossfire. A cyber weapon does not have the same physical constraints of traditional warfare.”

Smishing and Vishing – Mobile Phishing

As smart phones become a common – and even preferred – device for internet connectivity, they are also becoming targets for more sophisticated cyberthreats. Cybercriminals prey on the fact that phones are trusted devices, so users often engage them with less caution.

Vishing is a voice call attack that may appear to come from a trusted source. This can trigger a conventional phishing fraud, prompting victims to divulge credit card information or access their financial accounts to enable a theft. Smishing can use texting (SMS) for the same purpose.

But newer smishing variations include links that download malicious code that will compromise a phone the same way it might hack a computer. This can enable the perpetrators to access company networks when the users log in or check their email. Once inside, hackers can conduct the same kinds of attacks described in the sections above.

With so many people using their personal phones for business purposes, this represents a massive vulnerability for businesses. This, in turn, means a company’s IT needs to have protections and countermeasures in place to secure the company’s digital assets from remote endpoints.  

AI-Aided Attacks

With AI all the buzz in the business community, it should be no surprise that cybercriminals are exploring its possibilities too. This malign interest has penetrated every aspect of cybercrime. And just as it’s early days for tapping the true potential of AI in driving healthy productivity, the criminal underworld is only beginning to explore the possibilities for theft, fraud, vandalism, and even terrorism.

The technology’s potential isn’t necessarily creating new criminals, but enabling existing criminals to deploy more sophisticated scams and hacks. AI will help them identify and isolate more vulnerable targets in the oceans of data now sloshing around the dark web. It will also speed up their ability to iterate scams.

The weakest part of any organization’s cybersecurity is human frailty. As AI continues to improve creators’ ability to generate deceptively realistic sounds and images, that deception will empower cybercriminals to disguise themselves as trusted or even familiar contacts. In one particularly audacious example, three Canadian men were tricked by deepfake videos of Justin Trudeau and Elon Musk into sending $373,000 to the scammers. Given the speed with which AI is evolving, such scams are bound to get more sophisticated and more common.

As with most aspects of cybersecurity, awareness is the first, best layer of protection from victimization. The more and better employees are mindful of the signs of threats, the better your company will be able to protect itself. A program of continuing cybersecurity education might be the difference between business as usual and a financial catastrophe.       

PEO, LMS, and IT Safety

As a part of their services, the best PEOs offer Learning Management System (LMS) technology. VensureHR’s Vfficient platform is one such example. (Just so you know: Vfficient is SOC2 compliant and Vensure has been recognized for its excellence in cybersecurity.)

In addition to smoothing the onboarding process, speeding time to productivity, and generating a detailed record for compliance purposes, an LMS can deliver continuing cybersecurity education. As with all the other lesson modules, employees can conduct their cybersecurity training when it fits their schedule, and their test results are recorded for review by management.

As the largest privately held PEO in the nation and part of America’s leading PEO technology company, VensureHR consistently delivers the financial and operational benefits of a PEO partnership. Find out everything a PEO can do for you. Schedule a no-cost business evaluation from VensureHR today.