What security lessons did we learn in 2024?

From the growing sophistication of zero-day exploits to the entrenchment of nation-state and cybercriminal alliances, 2024 delivered more evidence of how quickly the threat landscape continues to evolve. The year reinforced hard truths about the persistence of attackers and the systemic challenges of defense. We look back on some of the events that defined 2024 and the tactical insights that security teams can apply to stay ahead in the ongoing battle in 2025.

Surging Zero-Day Exploits and Nation-State Collaboration

Threat researchers continued to see a year-over-year increase of zero days. Recent analysis by Mandiant of 138 vulnerabilities that were disclosed in 2023 found the majority (97) were exploited as zero-days — an increase from 2022. Tom Kellermann, senior vice president of cyber strategy at Contrast Security, expects that number to increase in 2024.

The growth is a direct result of geopolitical tensions, he says. Nation-state actors, particularly China, are exploiting these types of vulnerabilities at unprecedented rates.

"The Chinese specifically have been doing tremendous research into exploiting zero-days and discovering them," Kellermann says. "I think everyone's kind of on their back foot when dealing with this because traditional cybersecurity defenses can't thwart those attacks."

The rise in these kinds of attacks includes a new trend in 2024: collaboration or coordination between nation-states and cybercrime rings, says Stephan Jou, senior director of security analytics at OpenText Cybersecurity.

"In this model, an attack with nation-state characteristics is launched at the same time, or followed closely by, an attack on the same target by an independent for-profit threat actor. Russia, for example, has been seen to collaborate with malware-as-a-service gangs, including Killnet, LokiBot, Gumblar, Pony Loader, and Amadey. China has entered similar relationships with the Storm-0558 and Red Relay cybercrime rings, typically to support its geopolitical agenda in the South China Sea."

Chester Wisniewski, global field CTO at Sophos, says China-sponsored attackers have developed assembly-line zero-day exploits shared through state-mandated disclosure laws. Attackers initially used zero-days in targeted attacks, then escalated them to widespread exploitation to cover their tracks. Proactive patch management and collaboration between vendors and organizations to mitigate threats is critical, he says.

"The real problem is this accumulation of stuff that's not getting patched," Wisniewski says. "We just keep launching more equipment out there onto the Internet. And it's getting more and more polluted, and nobody's responsible for taking care of it."

Jou agrees and says the lesson here is that defense against even sophisticated attacks comes back to the same basics: patch management, endpoint protection, email security, awareness training, and backup and disaster recovery planning.

"By ensuring that these unglamorous but essential best practices are in place, security teams can rob threat actors of many of their favorite tactics to abuse networks and businesses," he says.

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