How cyber resilience will evolve in 2020

2020 has been off to a chaotic start with a flurry of ransomware attacks and breaches dominating the headlines.

Given external factors such as the global response to the breaking Covid-19 pandemic, it’s important to remember that cyber resilience is even more essential and threat actors have been seen to increase the volumes of attacks throughout periods of uncertain geopolitical events.

Almost every facet of our lives is becoming increasingly digitised, opening us up to all sorts of new vulnerabilities and new avenues of attack. Combine that with the largest work from home experiment the world has ever seen, we’re about to see some major changes in the cyber world.

So what will be the biggest drivers for cyber resilience in the year ahead? Let’s take a look.

1. We’ll see even more cybersec automation
Though there is going to be a rising demand for cybersec technologies, companies in the market for security solutions will have to evaluate their options more strategically. With budgets tight and skilled talent hard to come by, companies will turn to automated tech stacks to augment their human teams. CIOs are already grappling with legacy SaaS solutions that don’t fit their current tech stacks, and this problem will only grow bigger as companies scramble to automate whatever they can.

2. More brands will see cyber resilience as a source of value creation
As more and more customer operations become digitised, many companies are beginning to see cyber resilience as a competitive advantage rather than just a cost centre. With the coverage of data privacy issues in the media, customers and clients are far more sensitive to how the companies they deal with handle their private information. 

Major companies already spend millions on fighting brandjacking, BEC attacks, fake websites and scammers. They know their reputation is at risk if they don’t. Customers will happily switch to a provider that offers better data protection. Companies that can promise their customers a greater degree of cyber resilience than their competitors will benefit greatly from increased customer trust and brand differentiation. We’ll soon be seeing a lot more brands advertising customer data protection as a selling point.

3. Threats will grow bigger, more sophisticated and more disruptive

CISOs will struggle with an increasingly complex cyber threat landscape that will make some of the conventional protections for data obsolete. Ransomware incidents are likely to grow, as attackers target bigger companies for bigger paydays, knowing full well that even large companies have surprisingly poor cybersec practices. The scope and complexity of attacks will increase, with powerful groups, even nation-states in some cases, funding highly-skilled hackers to attack sensitive targets. And as IoT and 5G technologies make our critical systems more interdependent, even an isolated incident can disrupt a large swathe of our infrastructure. 

4. New data regulations and policies will continue to be rolled out
Cyber risks extend beyond national borders, with many attackers not even present in the same country as their intended targets. Data jurisdiction is already a hotly debated topic and has raised many questions regarding data sovereignty, privacy, provenance and accountability. Governments and regulatory bodies are already formulating new policies to manage these issues, and with data becoming ever more borderless, we’ll see comprehensive policies like the GDPR being implemented around the world.

5. The war for cyber talent will escalate

The cybersec industry is notorious for long working hours and unrealistic expectations from its employees. This has already affected the ability of many firms to recruit skilled talent, and as the need for digitisation grows, companies will offer all sorts of perks to attract them. Work-life balance, training opportunities, flexi-hours, remote working options and an emphasis on mental well-being will become more commonplace. 

Learn more about what the rest of 2020 holds by reading our Cyber Security Prediction eBook