Every January 28th, the U.S. and other countries mark Data Privacy Day, an international effort to spread awareness about online privacy. It's a good reminder about the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data, and enabling trust, according to the National Cybersecurity Alliance. In honor of this educational endeavor, below are five issues in the data privacy and cybersecurity space that businesses may see trending in 2023.

1.  Increase in Extortion-Only Cyber Attacks — While ransomware attacks have been on the rise since 2020, a recent trend has emerged where threat actors are bypassing ransomware malware and encryption tactics and going straight to data theft. If a victim company does not pay the extortion demand, the threat actors engage in increasingly aggressive tactics, like publicly posting the stolen data for sale on a shame site and contacting employees and customers of the victim company to apply external pressure on the victim to make the payment.