Many people think about cybersecurity as a thing of the future, but the truth is the field has very much stagnated in the past year, and still has many challenges to overcome.
Even now, as 2020 just started, there are still many threats to deal with and not so many experienced DevOps professionals out there. Here are some issues posing a global concern for everybody who spends time online, that Cybersecurity Companies will be trying to tackle.
1. Increased IP protection
As Brad Snow, Enterprise IT strategist, has stated, this year should be the one in which companies start being stricter about customer data and compromised intellectual property. This is an issue that shouldn’t be limited only to the Cybersecurity and IT teams of each company: Snow claims that everybody that owns a device connected to the internet should be provided training about the basics of cybersecurity.
In 2019, the exact value of intellectual property that has been compromised or stolen is thought to be of astronomical levels. This is why it is essential for companies to tackle this issue and ensure that programs are put in place to improve the security of the company and its employees.
2. Data security
Data security is very much a current issue that could impact our lives significantly, if not tackled in time. Data breaches seem to have gotten more frequent in the past year, and a lot of people don’t understand the implications of this issue. As Simon Marchand, chief fraud prevention officer for Nuance Communications, stated that once people’s data is stolen, it is most often sold on the dark web for the highest bidder, mostly to help fund illegal actions such as human trafficking or terrorism.
This is why, in 2020, it is important for companies to work on protecting consumer data, not only to keep customers safe from predators, but to also protect the company itself. Fraudsters can use information gained through illegal means to get into the targeted companies, so it is important to make sure these data leaks do not happen, in order to prevent much complex issues from emerging.
3. App security
Organizations led by Microsoft’s SDLC and OWASP have been trying to incorporate app security measures into their products for some years now. However, it is just as important to raise the awareness of developers over security and protection, as it is to find the appropriate security software.
That’s why it is important that, before companies tackle the technical issues involved in cybersecurity, they properly change their mindset about this field through raised awareness.
4. Predictions by Security Companies
Some Security companies have already started raising the main issues cybersecurity could be facing this year.
The company FireEye predicts evolving strategies in the case of ransomware, and they state that protection system developers should be looking out for these new strategies. They also state that currently there are some sophisticated underground criminal activities going on. A lot of people with access to certain organizations are looking for partners involved with developing ransomware, in order to use it to gain access to the network of those organizations. Sandra Joyce, Senior Vice President of Global Intelligence, claims that in the big picture, “we are all targets”.
Kaspersky Labs brings awareness to a couple of issues as well, as they are known to compile detailed lists of threat reports, from all over the world, every year.
This year, the company states that the highest threat is the abuse of personal information, from identity theft to DNA leaks. The main issues they bring to light after this are targeted ransomware threats, new attack vectors opened by the new banking regulations in the EU, and infrastructure attacks against non-PC targets. They mention other issues as well, such as cyber attacks focused on trade routes between Asia and Europe, personal information abuse armed with AI and faster development of mobile APT’s.
These predictions seem to be backed up by most companies involved with cybersecurity, including McAfee, Sophos, AT&T, Beyond Trust and Bitdefender. Among other issues brought up by these companies are threats such as ad malware caused by scammers, government censorship and increased use of “deepfake” videos by Cybersecurity criminals.
Overall, there seem to be many challenges security experts face in this upcoming year, but it is just as important for everybody else to bring awareness to the threats of the online medium, and to ways we, as consumers, can help tackle them.
Beatrix Potter is working for Paperfellows and OXEssays websites, as a writer specialized in DevOps and development. Bea teaches business writing at Thesis Writing Service.