Page 61 - Cyber Defense eMagazine February 2024

culmination of this race will reveal whether AI stands as a potential menace or the most impactful
emerging technology protecting our cybersecurity realm.

2024 will be the year that the reliability of the digital record meets its demise as deep fakes fully undermine
digital trust. Gone are the days when people could trust what they saw and heard. With the proliferation
of deepfakes, every digital record, whether that be a photo, video or voice recording could be a fake.
Given our current reliance on digital records within our legal, security and digital systems, and without a
solution, we will witness the crumbling of our systems that rely on biometrics to authenticate identity.
Soon, all forms of recording devices will have a built-in encrypted timestamp, acting as a watermark at
the time of capture. These encrypted watermarks must be built upon the only unimpeachable form of
encryption, PKI, to separate authentic images from deepfakes to re-establish digital trust in images,
videos, and recordings.

This year, the security of digital identities will enter an era of either complete blanket security or
fundamental foundational insecurity. Digital identities are everywhere and encompass all aspects of
everyday life. Anything short of full-scale security is inadequate. Thanks to the saturation of digital
identities, the days of unsecured digital systems are behind us. We are now in an everything-or-nothing
era of either complete security or a rotting foundation.

2024 will also be the year RSA comes under siege as researchers worldwide intensify their efforts to
unravel its encryption. The revelation of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) was a lightbulb moment for
researchers, who realized they no longer needed an operational quantum computer to achieve
decryption. Next year, more shortcuts to cracking RSA will be discovered as an influx of academics
compete to breach encryption. Although RSA is not expected to succumb, it will undoubtedly grapple with
an immense amount of pressure.

Lastly, businesses will have the rug pulled from underneath them as digital certificate lifespans
exponentially shrink. As leading web browsers continue to reduce the lifespan of digital certificates,
businesses will face a major headache in replacing foundational elements of security. The impending
shift will mean that foundational elements crucial to businesses will become notably challenging to
replace once the new policy takes effect.

In 2024, businesses must brace for a game-changing reassessment of security fundamentals that have
long lingered in the shadows.

About the Author

Nick France, CTO of SSL at Sectigo, the leading provider of automated certificate
lifecycle management and digital certificates, is responsible for the technology and
practices necessary to operate Sectigo’s global Certificate Authority (CA) and related
services. Nick previously served for more than 15 years as Sectigo’s Technical
Security Officer.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – February 2024 Edition 61
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