Top 20 Cybersecurity Webinars of 2023 – BeyondTrust Edition

This past year has been abuzz with new cybersecurity topics. With Artificial Intelligence (AI) arriving in full force, a steady stream of high-profile cyberattacks, and new technologies and threat techniques reshaping the threat landscape, 2023 left a lot of people searching for ways to enhance their cybersecurity knowledge. To help spread the information that was most needed by viewers this past year, our highly sought-after IT security webinars featured insights from leading cybersecurity experts on some of this year’s hottest topics.

Before we shift our focus to the trends and topics on the horizon for 2024, we wanted to take a quick look back at the webinars that captivated our audience the most in 2023.

Read on to explore the biggest topics of the past year and the twenty most impactful webinars 2023 had to offer us at BeyondTrust.

Cybersecurity webinar topic trends from 2023

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Before we start ranking the top 20 most popular webinars from 2023, let’s first explore the topics that made their way to the forefront of our audiences' minds throughout the year:

• Ransomware - Ransomware incidents have exploded in recent years, driven by digital initiatives like expanded cloud deployments and increased remote access. Today, ransomware and cryptominers are the top malware types dropped into cloud environments.
• Cyber Insurance – Cyber insurance providers are becoming more stringent about qualification criteria, and challenges with eligibility and compliance are expected to continue into the coming years.
• Zero Trust - Zero trust principles and architectures are being widely embraced by the public and private sectors as being the most effective defense strategy for mitigating modern threats. For most organizations, though, bridging the gap between the theoretical and practical requirements of zero trust remains a challenge.
• Identity Security - Identities and their privileges are now at the heart of every attack. With identity threats remaining notoriously hard to detect and only increasing in complexity, there’s a keen interest in the latest tools, solutions, and strategies for detecting and responding to threats across the entire identity estate.

Throughout 2023, our audience displayed a strong interest in ransomware webinars, as we will elaborate on below. Additionally, topics such as zero trust and cyber insurance gained significant traction and became highly sought-after. Remote access topics also remained popular, as organizations continued to support hybrid and fully remote workforces.

Top cybersecurity webinars of 2023

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Here are the twenty most popular cybersecurity webinars of 2023, ranked based on viewer attendance and response.

1. Post Breach Analyis: Okta Support Unit, Marc Maiffret and James Maude

Watch BeyondTrust’s Chief Technology Officer, Marc Maiffret, and Director of Research, James Maude, as they break down some of the common Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in recent Identity and Identity Infrastructure attacks—including those that led to BeyondTrust’s discovery that Okta’s Support Unit had been breached.

2. Preventing Ransomware: Building a Mitigation Strategy Using Attack Techniques Against the Attacker, with Ultimate Security IT, (BT sponsored)

This free training event was jam-packed with technical detail and real-world applications. The Ultimate IT Security’s Ransomware Summit was a one-day, three-hour event made up of three one-hour sessions, all focusing on ransomware prevention, detection, and response.

3. Tracing Cyberattacks: Techniques for Extraction and Analysis of the Evidence, with Paula Januszkiewicz

Why are cyberattacks so difficult to trace back? They are usually performed by smart hackers who finish the raid without a noticeable trace. Sometimes they get caught, but most of the time, they still run free. So, what to do when the bad guys are trying to access your corporate data?

4. Adventures in the Underland: Uncommon Hacker’s Persistency Methods and Countermeasures, with Paula Januszkiewicz

Persistence is one of the main aspects that hackers pay special attention to during the malware development and during the attack phase. The goal is very simple: to be as stealthy as possible. Usually, attackers aim to maintain their presence in the target's network by installing malware on various workstations and servers.

5. Better Together: Security Insights from IT/OT Convergence, with Diana Kelley

While this convergence brings new opportunities, it has also fostered a need for IT and OT teams to work together to ensure operations are protected and available. In a world where bad guys can search for misconfigured or vulnerable OT infrastructure using technologies like Shodan, the OT side of the house can represent both tempting targets and a pathway into the organization for lateral movement.

6. Bridging a Dangerous Gap Between Incidents and Cyber Crises, with Limor Ke

The number of cyberattacks and breaches rises every year. The complexity and sophistication of attacks is also rising, and businesses have to reckon with extortion, regulatory reporting, and legal implications of each breach. Unfortunately, very few are prepared to deal with major attacks, and breaches can produce catastrophic consequences. But there is a way to better mitigate risks: by extending your technical incident response program to cover executive teams and their plans for leading through cyber crises.

7. Mapping PAM to Cyber Insurance Requirements, with Chris Hills

The blistering pace and expanding scope of cyberthreats and ransomware attacks is forcing cyber insurance companies to re-examine their rates, premiums, and coverage. Insurers are looking closely at what industry classes they are willing to write as well as tightening underwriting requirements.

8. Key Steps of Must-Have PAM Capabilities to Secure Identities and Access, with Raef Meeuwisse

This warrants the need for identity security of all accounts. Effective security against privilege and other identity-based threats requires blending preventative and detective capabilities. Today’s complete PAM solution should not only prevent threats, but also provide intelligent detection capabilities as well.

PAM buyers need to navigate these complexities to prevent breaches, gain efficiencies, attain compliance, and enable & protect their businesses.

9. Defending Linux and Unix Systems: Hands-On Strategies Against Cybercrime and Compliance Challenges – with Demos! with Jay Beale

As Linux usage continues to surge, so does the prevalence of ransomware and other cyberattacks targeting Linux systems. To address this escalating concern, we invite you to join our webinar, Defending Linux and Unix Systems: Hands-On Strategies Against Cybercrime and Compliance Challenges.

10. Implementing Zero Trust Practically & Effectively Requires PAM: Here’s Why, with Morey Haber

Zero trust principles and architectures are being widely embraced and adopted by the public and private sectors – and for good reason. Legacy security architectures and network defenses are simply ineffective at managing a world more reliant on the cloud and remote workers. As a result, adherence to zero trust principles has been embraced as the most effective defense strategy to the modern, hybrid, work-from- anywhere world.

11. The Future of Identity Security and Privileged Access Management: Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them, with Dr. Eric Cole

Two of the most important areas in cybersecurity are identity and access. Most data breaches occur because someone was able to access an account they shouldn’t have access to, or access data or information that was not properly controlled or protected. This is a challenge for all sizes of organizations. For small organizations, there are not enough staff or resources in place, and for large organizations, the number of identities and the amount of data can be overwhelming. Therefore, a systematic and scalable approach must be built based on the basics of cybersecurity.

12. The Significance of PAM and Identity Security in Navigating Trends & Cyberthreat Landscape, with Christopher Hills

Cybersecurity risk management is growing increasingly more intricate and complex. Today's cybersecurity leaders need to face new and numerous challenges to effectively manage security risks. Remote work, vendor access, elevation of privilege, vulnerability awareness, and the expansion of hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures are just a few of the factors influencing market trends. And we can't forget the principles of zero trust security and the constantly evolving cyber insurance market. In this webinar, Chris explores the composition of Privilege Access Management and its significance as a risk mitigation strategy.

13. Microsoft Expert Roundtable: Dissecting the 2023 Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report, with Avi Shua, Jane Frankland, and Paula Januszkiewicz

Some of the world's leading cybersecurity and Microsoft experts will join the roundtable and dive deeper into the last decade of vulnerability insights to share their perspective on how you can improve your cyber defenses.

14. A Snapshot of Microsoft Across the Decade, with James Maude and Chris Hills

For the past decade, BeyondTrust has annually compiled a holistic view of the vulnerabilities within Microsoft’s ecosystem to help you understand, identify, and address the risks to your organization. Our 10-year anniversary edition of the report dissects the 2022 Microsoft vulnerabilities data, highlights some of the key shifts since the inaugural report and assesses how to best protect your organization.

15. 5 Key Trends for IT Service Desk Improvement, with Stephen Mann

The business-stakeholder expectations of corporate IT service delivery and support capabilities have changed dramatically in the last few years, but has your IT service desk done enough to keep up? There’s likely more your service desk needs to do to further improve and future-proof its capabilities in alignment with, and perhaps even driving, the expectations of IT support.

16. “Enter if You Dare”: Unveiling the Hidden Dangers Lurking in Your Data Center, with Dave Shackleford

As Halloween creeps up on us, it's not just the ghosts and goblins that should send shivers down our spines. The real scares are happening in the world of cybersecurity, and they've been happening all year long. But fear not because, in this webinar, Dave Shackleford of Voodoo Security is going to take us on a spine-tingling journey through some of the most disturbing incidents and trends we've seen this year. And the best part? He's going to tell us what it all means for security professionals like us.

17. Tech Talk Tuesday: Mastering Privilege Access Management, with Jason Silva

Today, privileges are built into operating systems, file systems, applications, databases, hypervisors, cloud management platforms, DevOps tools, robotic automation processes, and more. The expansion of remote work and cloud means organizations are also grappling not just with more identities, but with more complex ones as well.

18. Tech Talk Tuesday: Removing Admin Rights and Reducing Service Desk Workload, with Joe Vachon

Eighty to 100% of Microsoft's critical vulnerabilities in 2022 could be mitigated by removing admin rights. Yet many organizations are hesitant to do so because of concerns about hindering end user productivity. Join this technical product clinic to learn how organizations are removing admin rights fast to achieve true least privilege on all desktops and servers, all while maintaining end user productivity and reducing the burden on the service desk.

19. Women in Security – Embracing Diversity in Cybersecurity: The Power of the New Barbie Film, with Jane Frankland

Watch Jane Frankland for an inspiring keynote talk that delves into the ground-breaking new Barbie film, exploring its significance in promoting diversity and addressing the impacts of underrepresentation in cybersecurity. She will examine the key takeaways from the film and discuss the importance of embracing diversity in the industry. This talk will shed light on the impact of representation, challenge societal norms, and provide actionable steps to create a more inclusive and diverse future.

20. BeyondTrust Customer Panel: Protecting the Identity Landscape with Holistic Visibility, with BT Customers

The complexity of your identity landscape increases every day. More cloud services, new infrastructure being spun up or down, the dynamic nature of the Joiner-Mover-Leaver process, and even your ecosystem of vendors contribute to this complexity. Organizations have invested in tools to manage identity and access, but misconfigurations or other security hygiene issues could still lead to a compromise. A bad actor could exploit one of these misconfigurations and gain access to your systems in an average of 98 minutes. Still, it could take enterprises about 212 days to identify the intrusion.

Why you need to attend our cybersecurity webinars in 2024!

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BeyondTrust’s webinar program is renowned for its exceptional contribution to free cybersecurity education. Our primary focus this year has been on the continuous expansion and improvement of the webinar program. We have dedicated ourselves to fostering innovation and pushing boundaries, with the ultimate goal of elevating our comprehensive webinar program and providing an unparalleled experience to our esteemed audience. With over 100 webcasts delivered worldwide this year, more than 18,000 registrants, and some of the top voices in cybersecurity, we think we have delivered just that.

Here’s what your IT and security peers are saying about BeyondTrust’s webinars:

• "Great content! Like most folks, I always thought Zero Trust products were available. It is nice to see this myth debunked and in such style”

• “The webinar was well organized and informative. Its content was well proportioned to the time available. Thank you.”

• “The content was relevant and informative”
• “Great direction and ideas for aligning security controls with cyber security insurance”
• “It was an excellent topic and presentation. It was easy to follow and understand...very practical steps.”
• “Both speakers did a terrific job of showing the dangers and importance of properly securing against those dangers”
• “Very good session, with demonstrations and lots of content!”

What can we expect for 2024?

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We are already well on our way to building out a webinar schedule of compelling cybersecurity topics for 2024—and it’s already looking like a great year ahead. We have some of the industry’s foremost independent thought leaders lined up to talk about the big issues on the horizon for the new year: cyber insurance, ransomware, IT service desk trends, modern threats, and more.

Thank you for being a part of our global webinar network. Our webinars wouldn’t be what they are today without our loyal customers and the BeyondTrust extended community! Have a safe and happy New Year!!

Ready to start engaging with our 2024 content?

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Click here to register for an upcoming webinar, or to view any of our on-demand topics. And, as you’re gearing up for the new year, it’s an apt time to re-educate and take stock of the cybersecurity and threat trends that are likely to emerge. Check out what our expert IT security forecasters have to say in their annual cybersecurity predictions (for 2024 and beyond).

Have a topic you’d like to see covered? We welcome you to submit your topic ideas here!