The Bipartisan Policy Center recently released a report that detailed the top security risks in 2023. These issues range from geological concerns to heightened political tensions and each provides unique risks to governments, corporations, and individual people alike.
There is a handful of top macro security concerns the report goes over.
Topping the list is an evolving geopolitical environment. As tensions grow worldwide, cybercriminals have increasingly targeted key infrastructure, like medical industries, in an attempt to disrupt governments around the world. Risk factors like lowered inhibition for cyber crimes, state-sponsored threat actors, and media disinformation campaigns are all contributing factors to this security risk.
Another factor is an accelerating cyber arms race. As attackers and defenders of cyber crimes compete in a cyber arms race, key risk factors include threats to national security, criminals using commonly available technology to perform illicit acts, and the human factor. Simple mistakes or falling victim to phishing scams can be huge security problems.
Plus, there’s concern with the global economic headwinds stemming from stock market volatility and supply chain problems that can prevent businesses, especially startups, from being able to invest in quality security infrastructure because of steep short-term costs and a lack of personnel.
The report also highlighted overlapping and conflicting regulations that create a labyrinth for cybersecurity personnel and governments to navigate, and lagging governance with separate bureaucracies that can’t react to cybersecurity threats quickly enough, with a lack of cybersecurity experts sitting on leadership boards.
Other issues include a serious lack of security investments and defenses in place due to incomplete data, rising cybersecurity costs, or overreliance on one security system. Plus, there’s concern over vulnerable infrastructure that either uses poor security mechanisms or very outdated tech, sometimes decades old, as well as a systemic scarcity of talented cybersecurity professionals.
The outline includes lesser risks, such as increases in white-collar cybercrime, a lack of transparency to cybersecurity investors that drive away more scrutinous investors, an increased severity in breaches, the rise of cryptocurrency, social engineering attacks, and more.