Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020.  Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

By Peter Jensen, CEO, Spanugo

Cybersecurity Predictions for 2020: AI, Automation & Cloud

Virtually every day brings another cybersecurity attack against an enterprise organization. While a few state-sponsored attacks grab the headlines, the majority of security breaches don’t make the news. That’s because a single loss of sensitive data can devastate an organization’s reputation, destroying IT careers in the process. As more companies move to hybrid environments driven by Digital Transformation business strategies, the problem is only getting bigger.

Multiple studies have shown that organizations of all types struggle to implement basic security hygiene comprehensively, continuously and consistently in increasingly complex environments. Undetected issues left unresolved leaves both the organization and the IT team as casualties.

So where does this leave organizations? What do they need to know to better protect themselves? Here are my predictions for the 2020 year ahead:

• Organizations must take a hard look at automating their basic security hygiene in 2020 as security continues to be a huge challenge. We will continue to see massive breaches similar to the Facebook and Capital One attacks due to lack of cloud security hygiene. The shared responsibility model for cloud service providers such as AWS, Azure and GCP continues to cause confusion in the marketplace and adversely impacts cloud security. Organizations will be better served relying on a hybrid IT environment, including a mix of on-premises and cloud. Otherwise their data will continue to be exposed and government regulators will eventually step in.

• 2020 will see AI-based preventions become mainstream. IT security teams have the virtually impossible task of implementing robust security controls handicapped by inadequate tools and staff. Meanwhile, malicious actors are now using AI to deploy increasingly sophisticated attack tools. IT teams must respond by leveraging automation and AI insights to drive protection. By automating all aspects of security assurance, administrators will be able to decrease the risk and lower operational overhead.
  

• 2020 will see record high security breaches if this year was any indication. In the first nine months alone, there were 7.9 billion records exposed —  an increase of 33% from the previous year. Healthcare and Finance will continue to be the top verticals at risk due to the value of sensitive data. Even more alarming is the proliferation of IoT in healthcare. As more medical devices become connected, the potential for fraud and attacks increases. However, 80% of breaches are preventable. Most are due to misconfigurations, access policies and credentials getting compromised by insiders or external hackers. IT teams must start making sure their security stance includes agentless technology and automation that can help them work smarter, not harder.
  

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About the Author

Peter Jensen is an experienced executive with extensive global experience within enterprise software. After holding sales and marketing positions within Oracle, Symantec, and VMware in Europe and the US, Peter has been focusing on building and growing startups in Silicon Valley as CEO and VP of Sales.

Examples include Thinstall (acquired  by VMware), StopTheHacker (acquired by Cloudflare), ParStream (acquired by CISCO), and others. He is currently the CEO of Spanugo, a cybersecurity company focusing on continuous security assurance for hybrid clouds. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pjensen4/