Cybersecurity Trends to Know in 2020
As 2020 continues on its nonstop ascent as a year for the history books, we’re also spending seemingly exponential amounts of time online — irrespective of even the most ambitious usage projections. While trends for time spent online have been steadily increasing year-on-year, with stay-at-home orders, school closures, remote work, and shops shuttering, the change is more significant again. One threat that’s emerged alongside these events is the increased surface area for cyber attacks. So many organisations were unprepared on a cyber security level for the shift to almost completely digital activities and it’s no surprise that even tech monoliths are reporting this.
In mid-June, via a press release, Microsoft reported a worldwide vulnerability wherein they flagged this as a global issue in tandem with medical cases of the coronavirus soaring. Their press team said in the alert,
“Every country in the world has seen at least one COVID-19 themed cyber attack, and, of the millions of targeted messages we see each day, roughly 60,000 involve COVID-19 related malicious attachments or malicious URLs, including attackers impersonating established entities like the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health related organizations to leverage these organizations’ credibility to trick people into clicking on links in unsolicited emails.”
A Brave New World Of Cyberthreats and Digital Risk
In a world in a state of flux with new digital attack vectors rising both in nature and volume, prioritising cybersecurity best practice is a non-negotiable both in professional and private settings. While it’s inarguable that this is a long overdue wake-up call when it comes to “digital hygiene”, it’s also can’t be the focus when so many people on an individual and collective level are genuinely vulnerable whether it’s their data, financial information, privacy, or all of the above.
With so many people at risk of exposure, such as via Office 365, we can’t afford not to normalise a cybersecurity literacy baseline that equips users to protect their systems as well as those of their employer while they work remotely.
What Cybersecurity Trends Should You Learn About Right Now?
Global Data Protection
As many regions woke up to the urgency for better data protection protocols due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the push forward has been incredibly rapid with governments around the world racing to play catch-up. On an individual user level, understanding your rights and how this affects all of your personal information. Future tech, digital or otherwise, plays a big part in managing your own affairs. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation sets an aggressive standard for policymakers in other countries especially as it’s held tech giants like Google, Apple and Facebook to account for varying malpractices.
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Security Solutions
The heft of AI and machine learning security solutions will maintain their influence in cybersecurity for the foreseeable future. In terms of advanced threat protection, this technology is at the forefront due to how security is driven through algorithmic intelligence to identify issues. The strategic impact here lies in terms of predictive threat responses that helps mitigate risk in a far less reactive way.
An enhanced model of security management continues to forge ahead with estimates that this part of the cybersecurity market will exceed $46 billion in value by 2027. Concurrently, machine learning security solutions work to analyse then recognise patterns. This results in the pre-emptive identification of real-time threats. The subsequent outcome is threat management from a resolution standpoint which continues to prove its defensive value.
Cybersecurity trends 2020: Cloud Security
With the rushed migration to offsite work and remote access — largely via the organisation’s cloud — working from home is now the new normal. Even companies with cutting-edge IT systems may not have had adequate provisions for an entire workforce accessing systems remotely.
While the norm for many companies is cloud systems for organisation-wide operations, the reality is that they’re often ill-prepared both in terms of user best practice and the strength of the systems to withstand the current set of circumstances. This increases the risk of data breaches and even a backdoor opening up to an entire company’s systems.
Forbes reported on the risk for organisations saying, “While security breaches have risen 11% since 2018 and 67% since 2014. Consequently, we can only expect this rise to continue, given that remote work widens an organisation’s attack surface.” It’s essential that users uphold high-level security behaviours when accessing any cloud services. Irregardless of if it’s a professional or private account, as no matter what there’s a likelihood the data could be targeted.
Network Security with The Internet Of Things
The normalisation of smart devices birthed the Internet of Things and at the same time a new branch of cybersecurity issues. As people continue to buy these devices and add them to home networks, it’s rarely considered what sort of cybersecurity protections apply.
When scrutinised, it’s actually the case that these devices create open doors for uninvited bad actors. This is due to the fact that most of them aren’t actually equipped with any kind of industry security standard. This should ring alarm bells in normal circumstances. However it’s an additional worry with the volume of extra users and the nature of activity happening on most networks in 2020. Robert McFeely believes that this is a matter of urgency saying, “Home networks are inconsistent in every aspect.
Some old routers hold well-documented vulnerabilities, while the sudden move has left some companies allowing non-secure access to company networks.” Think before you plug in and make sure your passwords are complex as well as regularly updated.
Next-Gen Authentication Technology
In 2020 and beyond, it’s unlikely that your average account, be it work, banking or government, will accept a personal password alone. Passwords have proven to be a slippery slope to cyberattacks with 85% of incidents tied to users being tricked out of their personal information.
Even as we shift to having better, stronger passwords, the rising prevalence of next generation authentication has indicated a corresponding trend of stricter account management. This normalisation of compliance is shown to actually help boost efficiency in the long-term.
Moving towards the elimination of breaches is helped with the next-gen prompt for single use codes or even biometric recognition in some cases. One Gartner analyst Ant Allan reports that this has inherent value and will remove the target on the back of many an organisation. He says;
““By 2022, Gartner predicts that 60% of large and global enterprises, and 90% of midsize enterprises, will implement password-less methods in more than 50% of use cases — up from 5% in 2018.”
The insights in this article are thanks to Paradyn who are experts working across industries to implement, optimise and grow their clients’ network infrastructure. They are committed to delivering scalable security solutions with their specialist team and providing information to the wider community about practical next-gen digital trends.
