Top Cyber Security Predictions For 2020

Entering a new decade brings in a lot of expectation when we talk about innovations. However, when we look at the future of cyber security in 2020, then the attackers will continue to attack and they will adapt & find out new ways to penetrate into the system. Hence, in the year 2020 will have to put in more efforts in building a defense mechanism against all the ill intended hackers. Let’s take a quick look at the top cyber security prediction for 2020.

• Deep Fakes will hurt more: What are Deep fakes? Deep fakes are the fake videos or audio recordings that seem real.  They are life threatening and why do I say so? Because it is the manipulation of the real content which has the potential to sabotage the reputation of both individual and organization. Sometimes it is extremely difficult to even identify deep fakes; hence tech giants and popular social media platforms are investing their lot of time and money to detect them. The damage it causes is unimaginable. Mostly the deep fakes are found surfacing in popular and trendy social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc… In order to address this issue of deep fakes the organizations use machine learning to automate the detection & to create a huge catalog of fake content. In future, bloggers and journalist might have the ability to upload a video just to identify whether it is a deep fake or not. We just hope that soon a technology exist that can identify deep fakes before it causes damage which is beyond repair.

• Security Organizations have to keep up the Standards: In 2020, the organizations will have to maintain platinum standard for security as hackers will have security vendor for the targets to attack. It is important that the database of exposed password should be properly encrypted and hashed. Bragging that data or information is available in the plain text is like giving an open invitation to the cyber criminals.

• Tech skills have become new political currency: Since politicians know very well that the citizens completely trust them for the digital protection therefore gaining technology knowledge and doing the analysis will become very important for political parties.

• SMART Home: Until now hackers haven’t got any hostage for the ransom however it doesn’t mean that they aren’t trying. In 2020, we will witness more attacks which would be directed towards home automation system with more disastrous intent.

• Layered Authentication: Even though it can be hacked, yet Multi-Factor authentication is a recommended authentication strategy. In the new decade organizations who haven’t adopted layered approach to authentication will face more cyber-attacks. Recently hackers have also figured out the ways through MFA, hence companies should also apply best security practices at the password layer.

• Password will remain in trend: The primary authentication will be passwords and biometrics will continue to be secondary one. Towards the end of 2020, even if the face lock doesn’t work for you, still you would be able to unlock your phones & laptop by typing the password.

• Acquisition of Security Startups: Since several years, security industry has continued to be at top for startup revolution. In 2020, the fear of data theft as a result of third party vulnerability has forced many organizations to implement very strong security requirements for their vendors. Therefore, lots of small enterprise security companies are either acquired, fold or pivot to a different sector.

• loT devices under attack: A tremendous increase in the number of loT devices along with the introduction of 5G networks will cause more attacks on the smart devices on a large scale. To prevent the device from getting hacked, the device vendors are implementing new security features in their system. Unfortunately, there are still a huge number of manufacturers who do not implement security by design making the system vulnerable to hack.

• Artificial Intelligence based Attacks: AI has improved the identification of threats which has helped the organizations to be quick in their response that makes blocking possible for the ongoing attacks. However, the same technology is also misused to gather the information on their adversary. Also, the real-time response of the organization under attack helps them to adapt the hacking techniques.

• Cybercrime-as –a-services will be stronger: The CaaS model will add fuel to the fire, when it comes to cybercrime ecosystem. This model makes the arrival of new criminal organizations easier and fuels up the operations of the existing one. It allows the hackers to quickly access malicious services and products like malware, exploits, DDos for hire service, RDP accesses and Botnets. In the future, ransom ware-as-a-service platform, DDoS-for-hire platforms and spamming services will enjoy the monopoly in the threat landscape.

• Supply Chain attacks will grow : The supply chain of legal software packages will be attacked by implanting malware. The attack will be targeted at software vendors during the development phase and third-part suppliers. The attackers are planning to replace the legal software and updates with the contaminated version so that it can spread the malware through the legitimate software’s distribution channel. These kinds of attack are extremely difficult to identify and also getting rid of them is not easy even after reformatting the computer. The supply chain attackers keep finding new and more sophisticated ways to penetrate into the organization’s system.

• Credentials & Data Breaches will increase:  The attack is which the account credentials like usernames and password, which are theft from past data breaches is known as credential stuffing. They are used to access the user accounts through large scale automated login request. This is done by using web automation tool. Since credential stuffing makes lot of money hence it has become very popular method for cyber criminals.

Summary:

The world of cyber security is very dynamic. There are constant bombardments of new threats, technologies & weaknesses. Therefore, security leaders are under a lot of pressure to build such defense mechanism that can challenge the ill intended hackers. But eventually not everything can be secured as there are always loopholes to it.

Stay safe and secure in the digital world of 2020.

All the best! Prepare well!