Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

This blog is a follow-up to the post Opportunities & Risks for Digital-first Leaders in Business-led IT The days of shadow IT as an unregulated threat are over. Business-led IT represents a fundamental shift in how organizations innovate and operate. To succeed in this new reality, CIOs must embrace what I call the “New CIO” mindset.

In the world of cloud services, transparency has often been treated as a box to check rather than a cornerstone of innovation. Trust and status portals, once an innovative approach for offering visibility into service health and availability, now largely feel stagnant and table stakes providing the bare minimum. But is transparency and visibility just a “nice-to-have”? Some might think so. At Netskope, we see it differently.

In January, Netskope Threat Labs observed a new malware campaign using fake CAPTCHAs to deliver Lumma Stealer. Lumma is a malware that works in the malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model and has existed since at least 2022. The campaign is global, with Netskope Threat Labs tracking victims targeted in Argentina, Colombia, the United States, the Philippines, and other countries around the world.

In the digital era, the ability to adopt and integrate technology quickly has become a key driver of business success. Technology decisions are increasingly being made outside IT organizations as cloud-based tools, SaaS platforms, and low-code/no-code solutions become more accessible. Known as business-led IT, this trend democratizes technology, empowering business leaders to innovate independently.

No matter what industry you’re in, solving for performance issues is always at the top of every networker’s mind. Especially with applications like Microsoft Teams, or similar unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solutions from Zoom, Webex, RingCentral, Mitel, Vonage, or 8×8, that have become critical to day-to-day business operations.

In an age where cyber threats are increasingly sophisticated and prevalent, organizations must prioritize integrating security into the very core of their technology. Security can no longer be an afterthought or a box to check; it needs to be part of the design and development process from the start.

As security leaders, you’re tasked with protecting the crown jewels of our organizations, your data, while balancing innovation, compliance, and ever-evolving threats. Yet, too often, data security strategies rely on isolated tools and reactive measures, leaving critical gaps.

DLL side-loading is a popular technique used by threat actors to execute malicious payloads under the umbrella of a benign, usually legitimate, executable. This allows the threat actor to exploit whitelists in security products that exclude trusted executables from detection. Among others, this technique has been leveraged by APT41 to deploy DUSTTRAP and Daggerfly to deliver Nightdoor backdoor.

I have spent many years, perhaps too many, working in the world of IT and information security. I can’t complain, I have to say, it has been rewarding. And I have noticed in recent years that there has been a considerable shift in how cybersecurity is perceived within organizations, with this function gaining greater importance and relevance. The personal influence of the CISO has been improving lately, both in terms of attitude and perception.

Continuing our ongoing series collecting predictions from our many subject-matter experts here at Netskope, we gathered some hot topics and predictions from the Netskope Threat Labs team based on what they are starting to see evolving in the landscape. Here’s what they had to say.