5 of the Biggest Cybersecurity Trends in 2020

Introduction

Our growing dependence on the Internet has come with a few caveats. Spending all our time online puts our data at risk, opening us up to identity theft and other cybercrimes. As such, it’s important that you pay attention to your cybersecurity and what you are doing online.

To help you out with that, I want to go over a few growing trends in cybersecurity, both good and bad. Knowing what’s going on in the cybersecurity industry will help you look out for potential issues.

5 Growing Cybersecurity Trends

Like I said, these growing cybersecurity trends revolve around both the good and the bad—the growing risk of cybercrimes and the solutions to help prevent them.

1. Growing Usage of VPNs

Let’s talk about something good first: VPNs. VPNs (virtual private networks) allow a user to encrypt the data they send through their network. For example, if the user were to access their bank account, a VPN would hide that activity from everyone else on the network.

More and more people are using VPNs due to the increase in network-based crime. The growing presence of smart cars incentivizes vehicle hacking (a problem for Tesla), and committing data theft through public networks has been a problem for years.

Using an encrypted router (or a VPN router) can drastically reduce the chances of data theft or hacking of any kind, which is why we’re seeing more and more companies use VPNs as time goes on.

2. Cyber Warfare Between Nations

Politics play a huge role in security for any nation, and the increasing dependence on the Internet has done little to change that. In fact, the Internet has only increased the number of ways nations can interfere with each other, a practice known as cyber-warfare.

The United States and Russia have experienced their own bouts of cyber-warfare, along with China in certain cases. This is yet another reason why it’s important to encrypt and protect your data, and explains why companies are taking cybersecurity more seriously.

3. Growing Awareness Around Ransomware

2017’s ransomware attack WannaCry left companies—and countless nations—scrambling for tighter cybersecurity. What they didn’t predict, however, is that WannaCry was only the beginning; cybercriminals are deploying ransomware attacks more and more.

But why? Well, ransomware allows hackers to make some easy money with minimum risk of being caught. Plus, one ransomware attack can cause millions in damages. Because of this, more cybersecurity companies are focusing specifically on ransomware.

4. Hardware Vulnerabilities

The Spectre vulnerability that haunted a few of Intel’s CPUs was not the last. Unchecked hardware vulnerabilities are making a comeback, and it’s something that, until recently, we didn’t think much of.

Nowadays, hardware vulnerabilities represent an increased risk to our cybersecurity. Plus, hardware vulnerabilities are much more difficult to fix, usually not being able to be patched like software vulnerabilities can.

5. The Continued Movement Towards the Cloud

Physical-based storage is quickly becoming a thing of the past, with companies and government sectors deciding to transfer their data towards the internet-based cloud storage.

While the cloud allows convenient data storing, it represents a great cybersecurity risk. Hacking the cloud is much easier than stealing a hard drive, and since many companies are deciding to use the cloud to store financial/employee information, the risks of hacks are only increasing.

Conclusion

As time goes on, the need to focus on our cybersecurity grows and grows. Many people are becoming more aware of how to secure their data, but many still don’t understand why they need to tighten up their security.

And understanding what is going on in the cybersecurity field will help us understand what we need to look out for and what we need to do to protect ourselves.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes