Since the last quarter of 2019, we’ve been reading predictions from vendors and analysts about the future of technology and other trending stories.
According to Gartner cybersecurity risks pervade every organisation and aren’t always under IT’s direct control. Business leaders are forging ahead with their digital business initiatives, and those leaders are making technology-related risk choices every day.
The bad news: Increased cyber risk is real. The good news: Data security solutions are also real.
Gartner predicts that by 2020, 100% of large enterprises will report to the board of directors the company’s state of cybersecurity posture, include technology risk – at least annually. This is up from 40% in 2019.
Below are a few other predictions (and suggestions) by industry professionals FutureCIO approached in December 2019.
Threat from misconfigured clouds
Fleming Shi (photo right), chief technology officer, Barracuda Networks
I believe the biggest security threat in 2020 will be attackers going after misconfigured cloud infrastructures and stealing compute and storage resources. These attacks can be led by insiders as well as by external cyber criminals.
The ultimate damage will be data leakage and loss of mission-critical data. These infrastructure breaches will also lead to or enrich other types attacks ranging from social-engineered targeted attacks to botnet-enabled volumetric attacks.
I think ransomware and spear-phishing attacks will continue to cause serious damage, but I sincerely believe as public cloud infrastructure adoption continues to increase rapidly, the attackers’ interest will be drawn by the potentially awesome available ‘firepower.
Real and present danger: unsecure machine identities
Daniel Mountstephen (photo right), regional vice president, Centrify Asia Pacific & Japan
Asia Pacific is poised to become the global leader in IoT spending in 2019 — accounting for 35.7% of worldwide spend [Gartner]. This increased support isn’t limited to the private sector, with governments such as Singapore and Malaysia quickly progressing their Smart City vision.
Compounded with an ever-evolving enterprise threatscape, that includes automation, this means that machine identities will become the largest cybersecurity exposure point in 2020, overtaking humans. However, automation, if done correctly by humans, could mitigate much of the risk, and employees will remain the biggest weakness for organizations.
“Alexa, can you stop me from being hacked…”
DevOps and Agile security go pass buzzwords
Kevin Gallerin (photo right), managing director, Asia Pacific, YesWeHack
“In 2020, DevOps and agile security will take centre stage, as traditional security testing struggles to keep pace with fast turnarounds and development cycles required to go to market. To add salt to the wound, the world is facing a severe shortage of cybersecurity skills, with Asia Pacific leading this gap — 2.14 million positions, at last count.
These factors will get enterprises to start rationalising their need for security testing that’s quick, ‘always-on’ and flexible enough to support their digital transformation so that services remain protected year-round, as well as ones that can test applications that are still in development.
Crowdsourced security will also be pivotal considering the region’s skills gap, since it will become increasingly difficult to find skilled security researchers and testers on short notice.”
Focus on privacy and anonymity
Srinivasan CR, Chief Digital Officer, Tata Communications
Srinivasan CR (photo right), Chief Digital Officer, Tata Communications
With more data being generated and stored than ever before, security and privacy have never been so important. Making people aware that their data is being treated with the care it deserves will be hugely valuable for companies of all kinds, while anonymising it will be crucial to getting the most out of it without risking its integrity. Breaches are never good news, but if the data can’t be tied to an individual, it limits its use for the thief.
Fines for breaching GDPR regulations are serious business, so as more and more companies switch to the use of biometrics for security, the storage of that data itself is just as important. After all, passwords can be changed but fingerprints and facial recognition data can’t.
Biometrics undoubtedly make life both easier and safer, but the security of its related data cannot be 100% guaranteed. That means we’ll see stricter laws and punishments to deter those who might be tempted to steal such sensitive data and infringers must be held accountable.
There’s no doubt that there’s a lot to look forward to in 2020, with secure, reliable connectivity at the heart of it. What do you think the big developments will be in 2020? I would love to know what you think so please leave your comments and predictions below.
