What is Cybersecurity Top 5 Trends in Cybersecurity That May Dominate 2020s

As we have already entered 2020, now it’s time to summarize our predictions of the top 5 trends in Cybersecurity that may dominate or act as a threat to 2020.

We have collected a list of the top 5 trends of cybersecurity that may affect the information security strategies and industries globally in 2020. As this list is subjective, some of these trends may be relevant to you, while others may not be relevant to you or you have already implemented and you are aware of them. Anyways in this post, we are gonna make you aware of the top 5 trends.

As Cybersecurity is becoming a top priority in various organizations, it is mandatory to know what to expect from 2020 and how it could impact our decisions.

Before going to the list let’s have a quick intro to “what is Cybersecurity” and “why it is important”. Don’t worry if you are a beginner, we will explain it to you in simple layman terms. If you already know this stuff, you can skip it.

What is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is a field of information technology, and it is the practice of defending computers, mobile devices, servers, Desktop’s, electronics devices, networks, and data from malicious attacks. In short, it is known as Information Technology Security or Electronics Information Security.

Why Cybersecurity is so important?

You got what is cybersecurity. Now the next question may be why it is so important. Let’s discuss this. You can’t just simply allow a hacker to hack into your system right! Cybersecurity is important because Government, Military, Corporates, Financial, and Medical organizations collect, process, and store an ample amount of data on computers and devices which are somehow not safe. Organizations transmit the sensitive amount of data across various networks (including Government data which is too sensitive) which can be hacked by hackers, so to protect and defend this data, Cybersecurity comes into the picture.

Now let’s talk about the top 5 trends in Cybersecurity that may dominate the 2020’s.

Top 5 trends in Cybersecurity

1.Rise of Phishing attack

2.IoT vulnerability

3.ML/AI – not safe if you think so

4.Leaky Clouds

5.5G – scary network

As we go ahead, we will dive deeper into all of the trends and how they are threats to cybersecurity. Don’t worry we will not through you into complex definitions and examples. We will keep it easy enough so that everybody can understand it and that’s our motto.

Rise of Phishing attack

Phishing is a famous and traditional attack method to get into some unauthorized corporate and government networks. Cybercriminals use a Phishing attack to obtain valuable insights and sensitive data from unauthorized networks. We all know that “everything comes with advantages as well as disadvantages”. Similarly advancing in technology brings us too many benefits but there are certain security gaps and those gaps can be exploited by hackers. As of now, we are in 2020 and we are continuously inclining at a high rate towards software. Everything is becoming online and this makes the Phishing attack a major concern to discuss.

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The cybercriminals are grabbing every opportunity to launch such type of threats on all platforms to break the security. Victims of Phishing attacks incur unbearable losses including declining market share and stocks, customers’ trust and company’s reputation. Just look out “Operation Phish Phry” in Google and you will get to know how dangerous a Phishing attack is and up to what it is capable of.

Generally, hackers or cyber criminals use two types of phishing attacks

1.Email Phishing Scam: The attacker broadcasts thousands of scam emails and gains access to sensitive information and data even if a small number of people fell for this trap. This email looks very much similar to the real ones with having fake signatures, logos, and interfaces.

2.Spear Phishing: This attack probably requires a knowledge of the organization. The cybercriminals gather details of employees sneaking into confidential data of the projects handles by employees and the company’s sensitive resources and exploits them.

IoT vulnerability

The threats do not stop here. It is not only mobiles or laptops and computers that are prone to the security breach. Even the IoT (Internet Of Things) enabled smart devices are vulnerable to attacks. IoT is one technology that is gaining more popularity these days and as we are moving forward, it’s uses and applications are increasing. IoT devices are a collection of hardware and software. More part of IoT deals with clients and servers through the internet and that makes a favorable choice to hackers. The very famous “Man-In-The-Middle” concept is used for such attacks. As we are stepping forward towards the concept of smart cars, smart homes, etc there is a high possibility that the number of such IoT attacks will just rise in numbers.

Cybercriminals are constantly sneaking into your confidential data stored by your smartwatch, smart devices, industrial machinery, etc through a Man-In-The-Middle attack. They intercept into the messages that are transmitted by such devices, altering the communication and data before it reaches to destination.

ML/AI – Not safe if you think so

If you are thinking that Machine Learning or Artificial intelligence is under the hood and safe from cybercriminals, then let me interrupt you there and tell you that’s not the case.

Artificial intelligence has enhanced our lives enabling our devices to understand us better and to learn on their own from previous experiences. However, it won’t stop cybercriminals to exploit AI to break into your security system. Cybercriminals nowadays are using advanced technology to accelerate polymorphic malware. Altering the code and making it undetectable such that they can bypass the security.

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AI makes the exploitation process very easy for criminals. AI has already served criminals making it much easier to fool and trick email users, by firing a bunch of emails and also keeping track of emails that were ignored and seen. Using such technology makes the hacking process easy and we need a much-advanced level of cybersecurity.

Leaky Clouds

Hey, do you remember that old joke ” Cloud is just another computer”? well, if someone’s computer can be hacked, then what makes you think that the so-called “cloud” cannot be hacked.

There is a “Gold Rush” for organizations to move their data to the cloud. Large organizations are making rapid moves to the cloud without ensuring the safety of their data and possible security breaches. We believe that as we go ahead with 2020, there will be multiple organizations that deal with regulatory fines and data privacy breaches, as these steps are not adequately addressed from the beginning of the movie.

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The digital transformation era has empowered the business to shift their workloads on to cloud platform, thinking that this would keep cybercriminals at bay. Cloud technology is much optimized now for business. However, that won’t stop cyber threats and cybercriminals to target them.

You never know, when your website or server is the next target.

As most of the organizations are moving towards the cloud, this will become the most prominent threat to organizations. Cybersecurity will play a huge role in deciding the third-party cloud vendors in 2020.

5G – scary network

5G is a switch to mostly all-software networks and the upgrades will be like current periodic upgrades to smartphones. This exposes to enormous security risks and makes the system vulnerable to attacks.

The core concern of 5G is the number of connected devices that are sending and receiving the information is combined with routine network upgrades which makes it easy for cybercriminals to remotely access any network and do some exploits. This will create a minefield for cybersecurity professionals.

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As cities, towns, and government agencies continue to their networks, cybercriminals will begin to tap into the software vulnerabilities of the 5G network and have said that it is dependent on software which will make it a larger attack surface.

Cybersecurity professionals need to retool the networks, devices, and application security. Moving forward we will see a zero-trust approach for the authorization of the 5G network.

Hackers are becoming smart, so do Cybersecurity professionals.