Expert Insights on 8 Cybersecurity Trends for 2020

The Skills Gap Widens –The shortage of cybersecurity professionals is nearly 3 million globally, according to the (ISC²) Cybersecurity Workforce Study “Cybersecurity Professionals Focus on Developing New Skills as Workforce Gap Widens,” with close to half a million in the United States alone. What’s more, 60% of those surveyed say their companies are at moderate or extreme risk of cybersecurity attacks due to this shortage, the study states. Fortunately, the industry is responding with creative solutions, such as cyber ranges, to fill the gaps.

The Potential for Colossal Attacks on IoT – With the increased adoption of internet of things (IoT) and industrial internet of things (IIoT) comes the potential for colossal security breaches—both in terms of size and impacts. For example, the global connected cars market is expected to grow 270% by 2022, with more than 125 million passenger cars with embedded connectivityto be shipped between 2018 and 2022, according to CounterPoint research. Imagine the consequences of an attack.

It’s All in Service Providers’ Contracts – Read and understand the contracts of your service providers and delineate security responsibilities up front. For example, the HIPPA Privacy Rule requires that “a covered [healthcare] entity obtain satisfactory assurances from its business associates that the business associate will appropriately safeguard the protected health information it receives or creates on behalf of the covered entity.”

Dev-Test Environments – Production environments are protected, but what about dev-test and other non-production environments? Uber software engineers developed and tested software that could connect to backup data related to users and drivers through inadequate access controls. Intruders then exploited Uber’s software development environment in a series of breaches, demonstrating the importance of securing all software environments, not just production environments.

Growing Data Privacy Concerns and Regulation – Data continues to be collected from every connected device, which raises the question: Who owns the data? If an enterprise owns the data, then the enterprise must be mandated to protect it. The GDPR (and the California Consumer Privacy Act) established that personal data is fundamentally the property of the person. In the case of California, which will likely become a de facto standard across the nation, organizations will have to disclose to California customers what personal data has been collected, and then delete and stop selling it if the customer requests.

AI-Generated Cybersecurity – Attackers are increasingly using AI to mimic people we know, but security companies are also using AI to fight back. In fact, 61% of enterprises say they cannot detect breach attempts today without the use of AI technologies, and 48% say their budgets for AI in cybersecurity will increase by an average of 29% in FY 2020, according to the Forbes.com article “Why AI Is the Future of Cybersecurity.”

Fighting Back with Cyber Ranges – Today’s organizations, universities and companies alike are increasingly turning to cyber ranges to help employees understand the latest threats and give them the tools and practice to combat them.

The Downstream Suppliers – No longer are organizations navigating the global economy alone. There are partners, suppliers, franchisees and other constituencies to consider—all connected in some way. An attack on you or any one of them puts everyone at risk. The Target breach that shocked the world in 2013 and affected 40 million cardholders demonstrated how cyber attackers gained access to Target’s gateway server through credentials stolen from a third-party vendor.