What's on the horizon for Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity evolves year after year, because it is chasing cyber attacks. Here are some sure bets on some of the attack vectors that will keep haunting us for 2020.

When talking about cybersecurity, the types of threat vectors and attacks are always a moving target in the never-ending battle for the security of our networks (and people, and companies). 

It is not enough to utilize security methods to deal with yesterday’s threats because the threat landscape is also evolving quickly. And it is not enough to react to cyberattacks, instead of staying ahead of them. Here are a few certainties on where they’ll be coming:

Increasing Popularity of Enterprise Collaboration Platforms

Increased use of collaboration SaaS is changing the world, and almost all businesses use these solutions to ensure seamless collaboration and productivity across different functions of the organization. However, cybercriminals are taking advantage of this open access. In 2020, enterprise collaboration platforms and instant messengers will be leveraged by cyberattackers. Users typically trust these platforms to be more relaxed and immediate than, for example, email, which is what attackers are trying to take advantage of. The majority of threats still occur via an email channel, but as new collaboration channels appear, the potential damage and risks will also continue to grow, with attackers even using more than one medium for their social engineering scams.

Ransomware Will Keep Evolving

In 2020, enterprises will continue to look out for new ransomware techniques. Regardless of the industry, threat actors are trying to find access to infrastructures to deploy ransomware deep in networks in a quite customized fashion. Not only for the direct ransom profit, but because with a system locked-in attackers, it’s much easier to steal information and destroy evidence. Ransomware is evading the most advanced security solutions by constantly changing IOCs, which is why security solutions aren’t able to detect them on time.

Rising Sense of Urgency for Timely Protection

From threat surveillance and detection to analysis, mitigation, and recovery, a sense of urgency for timely protection is the common currency of cybersecurity. When trying to protect against the latest threat and malware actors circulating the web, every second counts. The most critical time during which the threat can cause the most damage is from the time it enters your infrastructure to the time it is detected. On the email case, Enterprises will be less and less tolerant of this because the risk within that latency period is enormous. We will continue to see organizations deploying the most sophisticated security in the cloud and in the perimeter to avoid any threat from actually reach detonation - when the user opens the malware, or accepts the fraud email. 

Increasing Concern about Phishing Attacks

Phishing scams are the number one cause for data breaches (some reports state that over three quarters of every major breach started or involved a spearphishing email) and can have terrible consequences for organizations of all sizes. The need to block phishing attacks drives most enterprises to enhance their email security solutions. 

Many tools that have enabled increased collaboration, efficiency, and speed are seen as entry gateways by cybercriminals. Whether we’re talking about phishing or ransomware, organizations must be protected, and that is what security professionals are focused on. Cybercriminals are always coming up with innovations to get around current security solutions, so organizations can’t rely on the solutions that worked years ago for threats from years ago.