Every organization is moving more and more of their vital infrastructure to cloud and online. This while essential for business agility it also makes them vulnerable to cyber-attacks resulting in the risk of losing sensitive data which could lead to breach of trust of the customers/clients. The rapid growth of hackers coupled with the lack of cybersecurity awareness has contributed to the rise in cyber attacks. Hence, it is very important for the IT teams to be vigilant in their security infrastructure, practices and policies. In addition it is important to educate their employees on a regular basis. Former FBI Director, Robert Mueller had once said, “There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those that will be!.” and that sums up the state of enterprise security vulnerabilities.

The risk and severity of cyber-attacks have risen exponentially over the past few years. According to a recent estimate, the global cybercrime economy is currently worth $1.5 trillion. Hiscox’s 2018 Cyber Readiness report reveals that 73% of companies are just not ready to respond to a cyber-attack. In order to dodge the cyber threat, companies should make sure that they have the very best cybersecurity technology in place.

In fact, since the year 2018, mankind has witnessed the most horrific cases of cybercrimes related to massive data breaches, flaws in microchips, cryptojacking, and many others. It goes without saying that the advancement of technology and the wide use of digital media is making attackers smarter by the day. Further, these cybercriminals take advantage of individuals and firms who pay less heed to cybersecurity. They target everything from a newly-launched blog to an established online store to gain access to sensitive information.

Cybersecurity Statistics – 2020:

• Gartner predicts, data breaches exposed 4.1 billion records in the first half of 2019
• According to research by Centrify, 71% of UK-based business decision makers believe the shift to 100% remote working during the COVID-19 crisis has increased the likelihood of a cyber-breach
• According to Verizon’s Mobile Security Index 2019:
  • 71% of breaches were financially motivated and 25% were motivated by espionage
  • 52% of breaches featured hacking, 28% involved malware and 32–33% included phishing or social engineering, respectively
  • 87% of enterprises are seeing mobile threats growing the fastest this year, outpacing other threat types
• Juniper Research data suggests that cybercrime will cost businesses over $2 trillion total in 2019. The average cost of a data breach in 2020 will exceed $150 million
• According to Forrester researcher, enterprises are predicted to spend $12.6 billion on cloud security tools by 2023, up from $5.6 billion in 2018
• According to Statista, The global cybersecurity market is predicted to grow from $167.1 billion in 2019 to $248.26 billion by 2023, attaining a 10.4% CAGR

Cybersecurity Trends – 2020

• Data Security will be a Top Priority

Data is the new oil and data breaches will continue as long as data remains a valuable commodity. Organizations are understanding the negative impact of data breaches and with data security and privacy guidelines like the GDPR, mitigation of data breaches through heightened and proactive web application security measures will be a top priority for organizations.

• Cloud Security measures to boost End-User Trust

In the era where more and more business processes, infrastructure, and data are moving to the cloud, new challenges have emerged. Cloud-based security threats due to misconfigured security measures have increased in the past 2 years. Cloud-based service providers are planning on including stricter security measures, intelligent, managed WAFs, and security testing features as an integral part of their offerings for improved end-user trust.

• AI will be a double-edged sword

AI/ML has been enabled organizations and cybersecurity teams to consolidate security measures and strengthen threat detection mechanisms through deep learning algorithms and other AI frameworks. On the other end, cyber- criminals have also been proactively leveraging AI and ML to improvise their attacks through enhanced network snooping and testing capabilities. As a result, 2020 will see much larger and sophisticated attacks. This will drive organizations to explore and deploy advanced heuristic solutions rather than relying on attack signatures and known vulnerabilities.

• Focus on third-party Vendor Security

The cybersecurity trends for the past couple of years have shown us that an organization’s cybersecurity is as good as the level of security of their third-party vendors. Organizations must thoroughly assess the cybersecurity measures of their third-party vendors, forcing smaller vendors to be careful about security.

• Increasing risk owing to Mobile Devices, BYOD

Organizations are allowing employees to use personal devices for work, offering tools to work on mobile devices and even encouraging the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) culture to minimize their own costs, be flexible and increase productivity by through remote working. Together these devices contain a wealth of business data and confidential customer data. This has increased security risks exponentially. Organizations will focus on putting in protocols for device and vulnerability management and strengthening endpoint security.

• Increasing IoT Devices

There is a stark increase in the number of IoT devices (wearables, home automation products, etc.) which are also being targeted by cyber-attackers to orchestrate large-scale DDoS attacks. 2020 will see more efforts to reduce risks happening due to IoT devices.

• State-sponsored Attacks to Increase

The trend of cyber-attacks, especially distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and zero-day attacks, sponsored by countries against opponents (other nation-states, dissident voices, etc.) to create misinformation, steal confidential information, state or industrial secrets, cyberwarfare, influence opinions, etc. would only increase in 2020. Governments and large organizations must deploy advanced security solutions to eliminate these threats.

• Phishing and Ransomware Attacks

Phishing attacks and ransomware attacks will remain an evergreen attack option and an evergreen cybersecurity challenge for organizations and security professionals. The evolving technology landscape is enabling attackers to evolve sophisticated phishing methods to steal credentials, data, and identities, distribute malware, crypto-jacking, eliciting fraudulent payments.

Ransomware is a solid source of income for international cybercriminals. Organizations must leverage advanced and intelligent cybersecurity measures along with in-depth training for employees and other stakeholders for effective protection.

Conclusion:

With increasing awareness among organizations the gravity and severity of cybersecurity challenges facing them, 2020 will see an increase in their spending for cybersecurity. The industry will grow as a result. There will also be a rising demand for more security experts across the different stages of development and there will be more CISOs in the boardroom. The demand will far exceed the supply of qualified experts, leading to a widening skill gap, which will lead to organizations looking to SaaS vendors, technological solutions and niche system integrator to rise to address this challenge.

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