As we look back at 2023 cybersecurity challenges and look ahead into how to prepare for 2024 there are many lessons learned from multiple research and analysts reports that tells us the story. I have summarized some of the key findings that I would like to share with you here.

• In a 2023 blog, CISA reported that small businesses are three times more likely to be targeted by threat actors than larger organizations.

• A record 28,834 CVEs were published in 2023, a 15% increase over 2022’s numbers.

• Cryptojacking is a type of cyberattack where threat actors hijack a victim’s computing resources to mine cryptocurrencies without their consent or knowledge.  Researchers had recorded 1.06 billion cryptojacking hits—a 659% increase over 2022’s totals.

• Malware jumped 11% year-over-year, with encrypted threats up 117% and cryptojacking up 659%.

• Ransomware topped the list at 83%, beating out phishing, encrypted threats, fileless malware, IoT attacks and more.

• Overall intrusion attempts continued to climb in 2023, rising to 7.6 trillion, a 20% increase over 2022’s total

• Moderate and high-severity hits rose 19% for education customers, 34% for retail customers, 36% for healthcare, 46% for government, and 47% for finance customers.

• Threat researchers observed 15.7 million encrypted attacks.

• Healthcare (252%), education (429%), government (629%) and retail (680%) all saw encrypted threats skyrocket in 2023.