This year was marked by cyber attacks on large companies, as well as public figures, home devices of all kinds and end users with a wide variety of malicious code. Massive data leaks, extortion for intimate photos and hacking of social media accounts were some of the events that marked 2019.
With 2020 just days away, we preview the trends of what's to come for both users and businesses and how to protect yourself from potential threats.
Key trends for 2020 include:
1. Increase of knowledge in Cybersecurity. 2020 will be remembered as the year with the highest demand for cybersecurity specialists. Knowledge and experience in cybersecurity will be one of the most required skills in the market. In fact, according to Cybersecurity Ventures, in 2020 there will be a deficit of 3 million cybersecurity jobs in the world.
Given this scenario, as a student, it is undoubtedlythe best time to get involved and train in this area, while for companies it will be necessary to carry out initiatives to train future talents and make a difference. VU University is an example of this, as it is an initiative that aims to train young people in cybersecurity and become the largest trainer in the field in the next 10 years.
2. New regulations that increase the risk of attack. Concern is growing among both government agencies and users about how companies are handling their personal information. Following the implementation of regulations regarding data protection and digital identity, government organizations are becoming more aware and demanding greater controls. At the same time, more companies will be looking for cybersecurity solutions due to new regulations regarding operability in the financial market (PS2D, GDPR, among others). This trend is reinforced by the latest KPMG study which indicates that "cybersecurity is the main concern of senior executives of Latin American companies in 2019".
3. New digital threats. Deception and extortion to obtain money in exchange for information will become increasingly sophisticated. The already known ransomware, an attack in which hackers "kidnap" information from a machine or system and demand a ransom in exchange for unlocking it again, will mutate to gaining access to social profiles or private accounts, which puts privacy and confidentiality at even greater risk. This type of extortion is aimed at large companies and institutions as well as ordinary citizens. The availability of machine learning techniques will be used by attackers to classify information and detect the most valuable profiles, and based on this they will calculate the ransoms or ransoms in exchange for which they will release the profile.
4. Hyper-connected and more vulnerable objects. Another trend is related to the growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners; there are more and more appliances connected to the network in homes, which will lead to new vulnerabilities. For example, someone could hack the temperature of an office environment or even worse: the security cameras or intercoms of a home as happened just a week ago. To prevent this, we suggest changing factory default passwords and using strong passwords, or setting up two WiFi networks in the home, one for hyper-connected objects and one for the exchange of confidential and sensitive information. The big difference between secure devices and those that are not will be directly related to their value and massiveness.
5. OAuth solutions will replace passwords. Finally, for some time now, there has been talk of the end of passwords. It is estimated that the use of hard-to-remember passwords will be replaced by OAuth-type solutions integrated with biometric solutions, such as facial, fingerprint, voice and even palm recognition, in order to significantly improve user experience and security. In 2020, this trend will continue to grow as organizations and enterprises begin to enable the use of biometric information as a factor in identity authentication.
In this new year, in which we begin a new decade of technological revolution, it will be essential to be attentive to every device we use and incorporate, since the greater the connectivity, the greater the responsibility to avoid becoming victims of the growing computer attacks.
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