2019 has seen cybersecurity concerns firmly hold their place in the report, both for the technology business and the general public. While companies are frequently informed of the importance of cybersecurity, most are fighting to establish and complete the needed security measures. From data gaps and IT security service team shortages to security automation and integration – let’s take a fast look at 10 cybersecurity trends that are likely to become the cybersecurity scenery in 2020.
1. Data Breaches as the Top Cyberthreat
Data violations remain to be reported as the most important cybersecurity concern, and this is likely to continue for as long as private data continues an important black market product. Guaranteeing data privacy and especially the security of personal data is likely to remain top of mind for organizations. In part, this is due to increasingly stringent privacy legislation, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but companies are also more and more informed of the negative outcomes of a break for their image. With web application flaws being a leading source of data gaps, ensuring web application security has become a top preference for all businesses.
2. The Cybersecurity Skills Gap
The requirement for cybersecurity experts continues to exceed supply, even though security teams have to trade with more warnings than always. With as many as two in three organizations global writing a lack of IT security team, automated security devices such as online vulnerability management solutions are fast growing essential to keeping a good security position. Modern products can provide even a small team to efficiently achieve multiple websites and web applications, giving a technological solution to pressing recruitment difficulties.
3. Cloud Security Issues
As business methods, infrastructure, and data are frequently moved to the cloud, shielding information and important infrastructure needs completely new approaches to enterprise security. Cloud-based threats will inevitably remain to grow, with companies struggling to keep control of crucial data and ensure real-time threat intelligence. Poorly secured or configured data buckets raise the risk of major data breaches for businesses large and small, and unofficial cloud services can all too quickly be added by end-users. Companies are finding that manual security management is no longer available for large web application infrastructures, which is making them rethink their approach to web application security.
4. Automation and Integration in Cybersecurity
Security experts, developers, and engineers are all under stress to do more with less, so automation and integration are essential across the board. By incorporating security into agile processes such as CI/CD and DevOps, companies can effectively manage uncertainty while maintaining the necessary speed and quality of development. Sprawling web applications combining various web services are frequently hard to secure, and automated solutions are becoming a must to reduce the workload on understaffed team.
5. A Growing Awareness of the Importance of Cybersecurity
With digital conversion ongoing in many companies, knowledge of cybersecurity challenges remains to develop not just for major companies but also for small trades. More and more companies are coming to understand that having a sufficient cybersecurity strategy and cyber incident response plan is a requirement, not a luxury. Information security training is becoming common for all teams to develop cyber-hygiene and keep a solid security posture on all levels of the company. Security is also obtaining a stable place in the software development lifecycle, with SecDevOps/DevSecOps processes to integrate security at all stages of development.
6. Mobile Devices as a Major Cybersecurity Risk
The number of mobile devices used by employees increases to rise, as does the quantity of business data saved on these devices. While the direct business impact of mobile malware is low, we can assume an increment in the number of data breaches associated with mobile device use and abuse. Every device used to access organization systems is a yet different endpoint to secure, so one way of decreasing risk is to provide access via a secure web application infrastructure with real-time vulnerability management.
7. Increased Impact of State-Sponsored Cyberattacks
Advanced persistent threats backed by nation-state actors are now an important part of the global security landscape. Cybercriminals unofficially backed by the state can perform DDoS attacks, provoke high-profile data violations, keep political and industrial self-reliance, spread misinformation, influence global views, and events, and silence inconvenient voices. As political tensions increase, we can assume these actions to escalate and maintaining security in the face of advanced, globally allocated attackers with access to zero-day exploits will need big business and government groups to deploy equally advanced solutions to detect and eliminate known and emerging vulnerabilities.
8. Risks Related to IoT Devices
In the run to deliver unique products and technologies, security is hardly the first point, so it’s no wonder that the booming IoT (Internet of Things) space has brought a wealth of security lapses. Hard-coded credentials, unprotected wireless communication, unencrypted intimate data, unverified firmware updates, vulnerable web interfaces, etc. Compromised IoT devices such as routers and NAS servers can provide access to communications and data, work as points of entry for more attacks, or act as DDoS attack drones, while home automation products and wearables can be accepted to steal personally identifiable data and other data useful to criminals.
9. AI on Both Sides of the Barricade
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are producing machine learning technologies into larger products in all market shares, including cybersecurity. Deep learning algorithms are being utilized for face detection, natural language processing, and threat detection. However, AI is also being weaponries by cybercriminals to produce frequently complex malware and attack techniques, requiring organizations to extend advanced heuristic solutions rather than relying on known vulnerability and attack signatures.
10. The Evergreen Phishing Threat
Phishing attacks remain an effective method of stealing credentials and identities, distributing malware, eliciting crooked payments, cryptojacking (cryptocurrency mining), etc, and the threat is not going incessantly any year soon. The same goes for ransomware attacks, which remain to provide a solid source of income for global cybercrime. Powerful protection needs not just decent cybersecurity training for all representatives and business partners, but also in-depth security and vulnerability management to restrict attackers from acquiring classified information used in phishing attempts.
