What Are the Biggest Cybersecurity Concerns Going into 2020?

Cybersecurity should always be a priority for a business, and cyber criminals are always evolving their tactics. As a result, it pays to keep an eye on the horizon for the next looming threats. Here, we’re reviewing a few threats that cybersecurity professionals say that businesses should be concerned about in the near future.

Compliance Fatigue

Unfortunately, in a world as heavily reliant on security measures as ours is, this is the threat to cybersecurity that makes the most sense - businesses simply giving up under the increasing weight of the growing list of compliances and regulations that they are beholden to. As more and more standards are outlined for businesses to uphold--without much apparently being done to enforce them--businesses are just more likely to let a few things slip through the cracks.

I hope I don’t have to explain how this could be dangerous. It goes without saying that these compliances are put in place for good reason, and as such, are meant to protect the welfare of a business and its clients. “Letting things slide” therefore translates to “putting all involved parties at greater risk.”

Furthermore, there are also concerns around the idea that some businesses could be beholden to overlapping regulations that demand contradictory or prohibitive elements. Faced with mounting demands, cybersecurity may suffer through oversight or worse, omission, due to an overtaxed resource.

Misconfigured Cloud Environments

Cloud solutions have seen explosive growth as their benefits to businesses have been made clear. Unfortunately, this growth far outpaces the development of the workforce needed to maintain these cloud infrastructures and security configurations.

As should come as no surprise, Gartner attributes a full 95 percent of public cloud security failures to the customers, not the providers of the platform. There are countless examples of misconfigured cloud solutions creating major security issues, many of which have taken place throughout 2019, like the infamous Capital One breach.

Based on history like this, it can reasonably be expected that 2020 will see more of the same.

Mobile Malware

Again, surprising almost no-one, our increased reliance on mobile devices for many of our needs has led to a similar increase in malware intended for these mobile devices. In 2018, Kaspersky Lab discovered a considerably larger number of malware attacks meant to target banking applications, and the number of malware files rose from 18,501 to 29,841 within that year. That increase certainly isn’t nothing, and can be attributed to the simple fact that more people are using mobile banking applications. The cybercriminals have just shifted their focus as their targets have.

Phishing Attacks

One thing that no amount of algorithm tweaking or patching is ever going to fix is the nature of the person sitting at the keyboard. Your users (AKA you and your employees) are the weakest parts of your cybersecurity implementation, as you are the easiest to fool and will continue to be going into 2020 and beyond.

Without the right training into effective cybersecurity practices, your company is going to be vulnerable to phishing attacks and similar scams.

Techworks Consulting, Inc. can help. To learn what we can do to help protect your business in the new year, give us a call at (631) 285-1527 today.