6 trends that are set to dominate Enterprise Cybersecurity in 2021

By Shitesh Sachan, white hat hacker and CEO of Detox Technologies

Growing threats to cybersecurity have made businesses all over the world far more aware of the value of securing their data. As a result, the enterprise continues to invest heavily in security, with worldwide spending hitting over $100 billion annually, with the market expected to grow to $170 billion by 2022.

Yet, despite the renewed focus and investment in cybersecurity, from an information security perspective, plenty of questions remain unanswered. Breaches still make the headlines on a regular basis and remain a constant reminder of the insecurity of our sensitive data and privacy. So, what are the latest trends and hacker tactics that we need to be aware of as we move into 2021? What risk do those tactics pose? And how can we combat them? How can we, as individuals, help to keep our data and our businesses data secure?

Danger associated with IoT devices - IoT Link devices flourish for various reasons on the market and across industries. The flexibility of IoT technology continues to drive its widespread growth, with its contribution to business workflows among the primary attractions of the technology to the enterprise. Enabling businesses to innovatively deliver their products and services, saving time and money. However, IoT devices also pose a wide range of security challenges, with vulnerabilities including wireless communication, unencrypted personal information, and vulnerable web interfaces, amongst others. Unfortunately, there is little users can do to protect themselves against vulnerabilities in IoT devices, apart from remembering to make sure they patch their devices at the first opportunity.

Moving to cloud - Many organizations are moving their digital assets into the cloud. When they are selecting a cloud provider, they are likely to opt for providers who have specialist partners securing the defences of their cloud-based offering. Organizations often realize that for large-scale web app infrastructures, manual security monitoring is impractical. They then review their approach to the security of web applications. While a small fragment of the cybersecurity, cloud safety platform sales are forecast to rise to $460 million. Cloud-based security is affordable, performance-efficient. Posing a higher intelligence threat and conforming with government and industry requirements. Kaspersky Lab predicts that approximately 75% of businesses will switch cloud applications and keep flourishing next year.

Mobile devices at risk - Mobile devices remain a very high-probability subject for breaches. The amount of business data that we store on our mobile devices is also very high, as they continue to be an integral part of our daily working lives. As a result, mobile devices continue to play a huge role in the ever-growing number of data breaches. Securing vulnerability management or pen-testing methods through web application infrastructure can help to detect and resolve security problems. However, ensuring your remote working teams take the following steps can also help:

• Locking your phone regularly.
• Setting strong, and regularly changing, your passwords.
• Ensuring your operating system is up to date.
• Only using secure WIFI connections.
• Only downloading apps or data from trusted sources.
• Encrypting your data.
• Install Anti-Virus Software.

The cost of data violations - Data violations will continue to haunt us. The total cost of data infringements for global businesses in 2020 stands at almost $4 million per company. With CCPA fines for a breach costing up to $7,500 per record. The common target for many of these violations is personal data. An attacker can change their methodology and choose a planned attack on the site's data instead of simply following their personal data. Either way, this can hurt individuals or groups for a long time, provided that the data integrity is in jeopardy. Data breaches can spread quickly too. Affecting multiple victims in no time at all. According to a report from Capgemini, AI can effectively prevent these data breaches by proactively anticipating the malicious patterns and anomalies, and enhance the security of critical infrastructure. 2021 could be the year that cybersecurity is reinvented by Artificial Intelligence.

Lack of skills and expertise - A global lack of skilled cybersecurity experts continues to make businesses an attractive target for hackers. The significant skills shortages identified by the World Economic Forum in 2017 persist. With Cybersecurity Ventures reporting that 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs will remain unfilled across the globe in 2021. Security training institutions will be oversubscribed next year, while businesses attempt to fill the gaps by internal training with customized programs that suit the company's needs.

Requirement for cyber insurance - The need for cyber insurance for both small to medium-sized and large businesses will continue to be a priority given the growth of cyber threats across the global economy. It will therefore play an important role in operational risk strategies in 2021. Insurance companies will nevertheless need to customize their products based on their customers' diverse safety and security requirements, and not only cover existing risks. An aggregated $11.5 million was lost in 2019 due to cyber hacks. It would not be a surprise if cyber insurance doubles or triples by the end of 2021.

Cyber security trends will primarily focus on improving and improving safety violations, hacking, and phishing measures in 2021. Proper cyber-security training and the thorough management of vulnerability and security need to form an important part of IT programs in every organization, irrespective of its size, to ensure adequate protection.

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About the Author

Shitesh Sachan - Detox's founder and CEO